Syntax of Dutch: Nouns and Noun Phrases (Volume I) 9789048517558

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Syntax of Dutch Nouns and Noun Phrases Volume 1

Comprehensive Grammar Resources

Editors: Henk van Riemsdijk István Kenesei

Syntax of Dutch Nouns and Noun Phrases Volume 1

Hans Broekhuis Evelien Keizer

With the cooperation of: Hans Bennis Carole Boster Marcel den Dikken Martin Everaert Liliane Haegeman Anneke Neijt Henk van Riemsdijk Georges de Schutter Riet Vos

Amsterdam University Press

The publication of this book is made possible by grants and financial support from: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) Center for Language Studies University of Tilburg Truus und Gerrit van Riemsdijk-Stiftung. Meertens Institute (KNAW)

This book is published in print and online through the online OAPEN library (www.oapen.org) OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The OAPEN Library aims to improve the visibility and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe.

Cover design: Studio Jan de Boer, Amsterdam Layout: Hans Broekhuis ISBN 978 90 8964 460 2 e-ISBN 978 90 4851 755 8 (pdf) e-ISBN 978 90 4851 756 5 (ePub) NUR 616 / 624

Creative Commons License CC BY NC (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) Hans Broekhuis/Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2012 Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise).

Contents Abbreviations and symbols

vii

Preface and acknowledgments

ix

1. General introduction 2. Main objective 3. Intended readership 4. Object of description 5. Organization of the material 6. History of the project and future prospects 7. Acknowledgments

ix ix ix x xv xix xxi

Introduction

1

Chapter 1 Nouns: characterization and classification

3

1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5.

Characterization Classification Derivation of nouns Compounding Bibliographical notes

5 16 48 110 114

Chapter 2 Projection of noun phrases I: complementation

117

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4.

119 135 332 355

General observations Prepositional and nominal complements Sentential complements Bibliographical notes

Chapter 3 Projection of noun phrases II: modification

357

3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4.

360 374 376 571

Restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers Premodification Postmodification Bibliographical notes

Chapter 4 Projection of noun phrases III: binominal constructions

573

4.1. 4.2. 4.3.

574 642 671

Binominal constructions without a preposition Binominal constructions with a preposition Bibliographical notes

Chapter 5 Determiners: articles and pronouns

673

5.1. 5.2. 5.3.

677 772 867

Articles Pronouns Bibliographical notes

Chapter 6 Numerals and quantifiers

869

6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4.

870 895 932 940

Numerals Quantifiers Quantitative er Bibliographical notes

Chapter 7 Pre-determiners 7.1. 7.2. 7.3. 7.4.

The universal quantifier al ‘all’ and its alternants The pre-determiner heel ‘all/whole’ A note on focus particles Bibliographical notes

943 946 997 1048 1049

Chapter 8 Syntactic uses of noun phrases

1051

8.1. 8.2. 8.3. 8.4.

1052 1085 1103 1112

Noun phrases as arguments Predicative use of the noun phrase Adverbial use of the noun phrase Bibliographical notes

Glossary

1115

Subject index

1139

References

1151

Abbreviations and symbols

This appendix contains a list of abbreviations and symbols that are used in this volume. Sometimes conventions are adopted that differ from the ones given in this list, but if this is the case this is always explicitly mentioned in the text. °xxx Refers to the XXX in the glossary A+section # A3.2 refers to Section 3.2. in Hans Broekhuis (to appear). Grammar of Dutch: Adjectives and adjective Phrases. Domain D Domain of discourse P+section # P3.2 refers to Section 3.2. in Hans Broekhuis (to appear). Grammar of Dutch: Adpositions and adpositional phrases. QC Quantificational binominal construction V+section # V3.2 refers to Section 3.2. in Hans Broekhuis & Norbert Corver (in prep). Grammar of Dutch: Verbs and verb prhases. Abbreviations used in both the main text and the examples AP Adjectival Phrase PP Prepositional Phrase DP Determiner Phrase QP Quantifier Phrase NP Noun Phrase* VP Verb Phrase NumP Numeral Phrase *) Noun phrase is written in full when the NP-DP distinction is not relevant. Symbols, abbreviations and conventions used in the examples e Phonetically empty element Ref Referent argument (external °thematic role of nouns/adjectives) Rel Related argument (internal °thematic role of relational nouns) OP Empty operator PG Parasitic gap PRO Implied subject in, e.g., infinitival clauses Implied subject PRO with arbitrary (generic) reference PROarb t Trace (the original position of a moved element) XXX Small caps indicates that XXX is assigned contrastive accent Abbreviations used as subscripts in the examples nom nominative 1p/2p/3p 1st, 2nd, 3rd person acc accusative pl plural dat dative poss possessor dim diminutive pred predicate fem feminine rec recipient masc masculine sg singular

Abbreviations used in the glosses of the examples AFF Affirmative marker COMP Complementizer: dat ‘that’ in finite declarative clauses, of ‘whether/if’ in finite interrogative clauses, and om in infinitival clauses prt. Particle that combines with a particle verb PRT Particle of different kinds REFL The short form of the reflexive pronoun, e.g., zich; the long form zichzelf is usually translated as himself/herself/itself XXX Small caps in other cases indicates that XXX cannot be translated Diacritics used for indicating acceptability judgments * Unacceptable *? Relatively acceptable compared to * ?? Intermediate or unclear status ? Marked: not completely acceptable or disfavored form (?) Slightly marked, but probably acceptable no marking Fully acceptable % Not (fully) acceptable due to non-syntactic factors or varying judgments among speakers # Unacceptable under intended reading $ Special status: old-fashioned, archaic, very formal, incoherent, etc. Other conventions xx/yy Acceptable both with xx and with yy *xx/yy Unacceptable with xx, but acceptable with yy xx/*yy Acceptable with xx, but unacceptable with yy (xx) Acceptable both with and without xx *(xx) Acceptable with, but unacceptable without xx (*xx) Acceptable without, but unacceptable with xx .. Alternative placement of xx in an example .. .. Impossible placement of xx in an example ⇒ Necessarily implies ⇒ Does not necessarily imply / XX ... YY Italics indicate binding XXi ... YYi Coindexing indicates coreference XXi ... YYj Counter-indexing indicates disjoint reference Unacceptable with index i, acceptable with index j XX*i/j XXi/*j Unacceptable with index j, acceptable with index i Constituent brackets of a constituent XP [XP ... ]

Preface and acknowledgments 1. General introduction Dutch is an official language in the Netherlands, Belgium-Flanders, Surinam, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. With about 22 million native speakers it is one of the world's greater languages. It is taught and studied at about 250 universities around the world (www.minbuza.nl/en/you-and-netherlands/about-the-netherlands/ general-information/the-country-and-its-people.html). Furthermore, Dutch is one of the most well-studied living languages; research on it has had a major, and still continuing, impact on the development of formal linguistic theory, and it plays an important role in various other types of linguistic research. It is therefore unfortunate that there is no recent comprehensive scientifically based description of the grammar of Dutch that is accessible to a wider international audience. As a result, much information remains hidden in scientific publications: some information is embedded in theoretical discussions that are mainly of interest for and accessible to certain groups of formal linguists or that are more or less outdated in the light of more recent findings and theoretical developments, some is buried in publications with only a limited distribution, and some is simply inaccessible to large groups of readers given that it is written in Dutch. The series Syntax of Dutch (SoD) aims at filling this gap for syntax. 2. Main objective The main objective of SoD is to present a synthesis of currently available syntactic knowledge of Dutch. It gives a comprehensive overview of the relevant research on Dutch that not only presents the findings of earlier approaches to the language, but also includes the results of the formal linguistic research carried out over the last four or five decades that often cannot be found in the existing reference books. It must be emphasized, however, that SoD is primarily concerned with language description and not with linguistic theory; the reader will generally look in vain for critical assessments of theoretical proposals made to account for specific phenomena. Although SoD addresses many of the central issues of current linguistic theory, it does not provide an introduction to current linguistic theory. Readers interested in such an introduction are referred to one of the many existing introductory textbooks, or to handbooks like The Blackwell Companion to Syntax, edited by Martin Everaert & Henk van Riemsdijk, or The Cambridge Handbook of Generative Syntax, edited by Marcel den Dikken. A recent publication that aims at providing a description of Dutch in a more theoretical setting is The Syntax of Dutch by Jan-Wouter Zwart in the Cambridge Syntax Guides series. 3. Intended readership SoD is not intended for a specific group of linguists, but aims at a more general readership. Our intention was to produce a work of reference that is accessible to a large audience that has some training in linguistics and/or neighboring disciplines and that provides support to all researchers interested in matters relating to the

x Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases syntax of Dutch. Although we did not originally target this group, we believe that the descriptions we provide are normally also accessible to advanced students of language and linguistics. The specification of our target group above implies that we have tried to avoid jargon from specific theoretical frameworks and to use as much as possible the lingua franca that linguists use in a broader context. Whenever we introduce a notion that we believe not to be part of the lingua franca, we will provide a brief clarification of this notion in a glossary; first occurrences of such notions in a certain context are normally marked by means of °. 4. Object of description The object of description is aptly described by the title of the series, Syntax of Dutch. This title suggests a number of ways in which the empirical domain is restricted, which we want to spell out here in more detail by briefly discussing the two notions syntax and Dutch. I. Syntax Syntax is the field of linguistics that studies how words are combined into larger phrases and, ultimately, sentences. This means that we do not systematically discuss the internal structure of words (this is the domain of morphology) or the way in which sentences are put to use in discourse: we only digress on such matters when this is instrumental in describing the syntactic properties of the language. For example, Chapter N1 contains an extensive discussion of deverbal nominalization, but this is only because this morphological process is relevant for the discussion of complementation of nouns in Chapter N2. And Section N8.1.3 will show that the word order difference between the two examples in (1) is related to the preceding discourse: when pronounced with neutral (non-contrastive) accent, the object Marie may only precede clause adverbs like waarschijnlijk ‘probably’ when it refers to some person who has already been mentioned in (or is implied by) the preceding discourse. (1)

a.

b.

Jan heeft waarschijnlijk Marie gezien. Jan has probably Marie seen ‘Jan has probably seen Marie.’ Jan heeft Marie waarschijnlijk gezien. Jan has Marie probably seen ‘Jan has probably seen Marie.’

[Marie = discourse new]

[Marie = discourse old]

Our goal of describing the internal structure of phrases and sentences means that we focus on competence (the internalized grammar of native speakers), and not on performance (the actual use of language). This implies that we will make extensive use of constructed examples that are geared to the syntactic problem at hand, and that we will not systematically incorporate the findings of currently flourishing corpus/usage-based approaches to language: this will be done only insofar as this may shed light on matters concerning the internal structure of phrases. A case for which this type of research may be syntactically relevant is the word order variation of the verb-final sequence in (2), which has been extensively studied since Pauwels

Preface and acknowledgments xi (1950) and which has been shown to be sensitive to a large number of interacting variables, see De Sutter (2005/2007) for extensive discussion. (2)

a.

b.

dat Jan dat boek gelezen heeft. that Jan that book read has ‘that Jan has read that book.’ dat Jan dat boek heeft gelezen. that Jan that book has read ‘that Jan has read that book.’

This being said, it is important to point out that SoD will pay ample attention to certain aspects of meaning, and reference will also be made to phonological aspects such as stress and intonation wherever they are relevant (e.g., in the context of word order phenomena like in (1)). The reason for this is that current formal grammar assumes that the output of the syntactic module of the grammar consists of objects (sentences) that relate form and meaning. Furthermore, formal syntax has been quite successful in establishing and describing a large number of restrictions on this relationship. A prime example of this is the formulation of so-called °binding theory, which accounts (among other things) for the fact that referential pronouns like hem ‘him’ and anaphoric pronouns like zichzelf ‘himself’ differ in the domain within which they can/must find an antecedent. For instance, the examples in (3), in which the intended antecedent of the pronouns is given in italics, show that whereas referential object pronouns like hem cannot have an antecedent within their clause, anaphoric pronouns like zichzelf ‘himself’ must have an antecedent in their clause, see Section N5.2.1.5, sub III, for more detailed discussion. (3)

a.

b.

Jan denkt dat Peter hem/*zichzelf bewondert. Jan thinks that Peter him/himself admires ‘Jan thinks that Peter is admiring him [= Jan].’ Jan denkt dat Peter zichzelf/*hem bewondert. Jan thinks that Peter himself/him admires ‘Jan thinks that Peter is admiring himself [= Peter].’

II. Dutch SoD aims at giving a syntactic description of what we will loosely refer to as Standard Dutch, although we are aware that there are many problems with this notion. First, the notion of Standard Dutch is often used to refer to written language and more formal registers, which are perceived as more prestigious than the colloquial uses of the language. Second, the notion of Standard Dutch suggests that there is an invariant language system that is shared by a large group of speakers. Third, the notion carries the suggestion that some, often unnamed, authority is able to determine what should or should not be part of the language, or what should or should not be considered proper language use. See Milroy (2001) for extensive discussion of this notion of standard language. SoD does not provide a description of this prestigious, invariant, externally determined language system. The reason for this is that knowledge of this system does not involve the competence of the individual language user but “is the product of a series of educational and social factors which have overtly impinged on the

xii Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases linguistic experiences of individuals, prescribing the correctness/incorrectness of certain constructions” (Adger & Trousdale 2007). Instead, the notion of standard language in SoD should be understood more neutrally as an idealization that refers to certain properties of linguistic competence that we assume to be shared by the individual speakers of the language. This notion of standard language deviates from the notion of standard language discussed earlier in that it may include properties that would be rejected by language teachers, and exclude certain properties that are explicitly taught as being part of the standard language. To state the latter in more technical terms: our notion of standard language refers to the core grammar (those aspects of the language system that arise spontaneously in the language learning child by exposure to utterances in the standard language) and excludes the periphery (those properties of the standard language that are explicitly taught at some later age). This does not mean that we will completely ignore the more peripheral issues, but it should be kept in mind that these have a special status and may exhibit properties that are alien to the core system. A distinguishing property of standard languages is that they may be used among speakers of different dialects, and that they sometimes have to be acquired by speakers of such dialects as a second language at a later age, that is, in a similar fashion as a foreign language (although this may be rare in the context of Dutch). This property of standard languages entails that it is not contradictory to distinguish various varieties of, e.g., Standard Dutch. This view is also assumed by Haeseryn et al. (1997: section 0.6.2), who make the four-way distinction in (4) when it comes to geographically determined variation. (4) a. b. c. d.

• Types of Dutch according to Haeseryn et al. (1997) Standard language Regional variety of Standard Dutch Regional variety of Dutch Dialect

The types in (4b&c) are characterized by certain properties that are found in certain larger, but geographically restricted regions only. The difference between the two varieties is defined by Haeseryn at al. (1997) by appealing to the perception of the properties in question by other speakers of the standard language: when the majority of these speakers do not consider the property in question characteristic for a certain geographical region, the property is part of a regional variety of Standard Dutch; when the property in question is unknown to certain speakers of the standard language or considered to be characteristic for a certain geographical region, it is part of a regional variety of Dutch. We will not adopt the distinction between the types in (4b) and (4c) since we are not aware of any large-scale perception studies that could help us to distinguish the two varieties in question. We therefore simply join the two categories into a single one, which leads to the typology in (5). (5) a. b. c. .

• Types of Dutch distinguished in SoD Standard Dutch Regional variety of Dutch Dialect of Dutch

Preface and acknowledgments xiii We believe it to be useful to think of the notions in (5) in terms of grammatical properties that are part of the competence of groups of speakers. Standard Dutch can then be seen as a set of properties that is part of the competence of all speakers of the language. Examples of such properties in the nominal domain are that nonpronominal noun phrases are not morphologically case-marked and that the word order within noun phrases is such that nouns normally follow attributively used adjectives but precede PP-modifiers and that articles precede attributive adjectives (if present); cf. (6a). Relevant properties within the clausal domain are that finite verbs occupy the co-called second position in main clauses whereas non-main verbs tend to cluster in the right-hand side of the clause (see (6b)), and that finite verbs join the clause-final non-finite verbs in embedded clauses (see (6c)). (6)

a. b.

c.

de oude man in de stoel [word order within noun phrases] the old man in the chair Jan heeft de man een lied horen zingen. [verb second/clustering] Jan has the man a song hear sing ‘Jan has heard the man sing a song.’ dat Jan de man een lied heeft horen zingen. [verb clustering] that Jan the man a song has hear sing ‘that Jan has heard the man sing a song.’

Varieties of Dutch arise as the result of sets of additional properties that are part of the competence of larger subgroups of speakers—such properties will define certain special characteristics of the variety in question but will normally not give rise to linguistic outputs that are inaccessible to speakers of other varieties; see the discussion of (7) below for a typical example. Dialects can be seen as a set of properties that characterizes a group of speakers in a restricted geographical area— such properties may be alien to speakers of the standard language and may give rise to linguistic outputs that are not immediately accessible to other speakers of Dutch; see the examples in (9) below for a potential case. This way of thinking about the typology in (5) enables us to use the language types in a more gradient way, which may do more justice to the situation that we actually find. Furthermore, it makes it possible to define varieties of Dutch along various (e.g., geographical and possibly social) dimensions. The examples in (7) provide an example of a property that belongs to regional varieties of Dutch: speakers of northern varieties of Dutch require that the direct object dat boek ‘that book’ precede all non-finite verbs in clause-final position, whereas speakers of the southern varieties of Dutch (especially those spoken in the Flemish part of Belgium) will also allow the object to permeate the verb sequence, as long as it precedes the main verb. (7)

a.

b.

dat Jan wil kopen. that Jan that book wants buy ‘that Jan wants to buy that book.’ dat Jan wil kopen. that Jan that book wants buy ‘that Jan wants to buy that book.’

[Northern Dutch]

[Southern Dutch]

xiv Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases Dialects of Dutch may deviate in various respects from Standard Dutch. There are, for example, various dialects that exhibit morphological agreement between the subject and the complementizer, which is illustrated in (8) by examples taken from Van Haeringen (1939); see Haegeman (1992), Hoekstra & Smit (1997), Zwart (1997), Barbiers et al. (2005) and the references given there for more examples and extensive discussion. Complementizer agreement is a typical dialect property as it does not occur in (the regional varieties of) Standard Dutch. (8)

a.

b.

Assg Wim kompsg, mot jə zorgə dat je tuis ben. when Wim comes must you make.sure that you at.home are ‘When Wim comes, you must make sure to be home.’ dat je tuis ben. Azzəpl Kees en Wim komməpl, mot jə zorgə when Kees and Wim come must you make.sure that you home are ‘When Kees and Wim come, you must make sure to be home.’

The examples in (9) illustrate another property that belongs to a certain set of dialects. Speakers of most varieties of Dutch would agree that the use of possessive datives is only possible in a limited set of constructions: whereas possessive datives are possible in constructions like (9a), in which the possessee is embedded in a °complementive PP, they are excluded in constructions like (9b), where the possessee functions as a direct object. Constructions like (9b) are perceived (if understood at all) as belonging to certain eastern and southern dialects, which is indicated here by means of a percentage sign. (9)

a.

Marie zet Peter/hempossessor het kind op de kniepossessee. Marie puts Peter/him the child onto the knee ‘Marie puts the child on Peter’s/his knee. b. %Hij wast Peter/hempossessor de handenpossessee. he washes Peter/him the hands ‘He is washing Peter’s/his hands.’

Note that the typology in (5) should allow for certain dialectal properties to become part of certain regional varieties of Dutch, as indeed seems to be the case for possessive datives of the type in (9b); cf. Cornips (1994). This shows again that it is not possible to draw sharp dividing lines between regional varieties and dialects and emphasizes that we are dealing with dynamic systems; see the discussion of (5) above. For our limited purpose, however, the proposed distinctions seem to suffice. It must be stressed that the description of the types of Dutch in (5) in terms of properties of the competence of groups of speakers implies that Standard Dutch is actually not a language in the traditional sense; it is just a subset of properties that all non-dialectal varieties of Dutch have in common. Selecting one of these varieties as Standard Dutch in the more traditional sense described in the beginning of this subsection is not a linguistic enterprise and will therefore not concern us here. For practical reasons, however, we will focus on the variety of Dutch that is spoken in the northwestern part of the Netherlands. One reason for doing this is that, so far, the authors who have contributed to SoD are all native speakers of this variety and can therefore simply appeal to their own intuitions in order to establish whether this variety does or does not exhibit a certain property. A second reason is

Preface and acknowledgments xv that this variety seems close to the varieties that have been discussed in the linguistic literature on “Standard Dutch”. This does not mean that we will not discuss other varieties of Dutch, but we will do this only when we have reason to believe that they behave differently. Unfortunately, however, not much is known about the syntactic differences between the various varieties of Dutch and since it is not part of our goal to solve this problem, we want to encourage the reader to restrict the judgments given in SoD to speakers of the northwestern variety (unless indicated otherwise). Although in the vast majority of cases the other varieties of Dutch will exhibit identical or similar behavior given that the behavior in question reflects properties that are part to the standard language (in the technical sense given above), the reader should keep in mind that this cannot be taken for granted as it may also reflect properties of the regional variety spoken by the authors of this work. 5. Organization of the material SoD is divided in four main parts that focus on the four LEXICAL CATEGORIES: verbs, nouns, adjectives and adpositions. Lexical categories have denotations and normally take arguments: nouns denote sets of entities, verbs denote states-ofaffairs (activities, processes, etc.) that these entities may be involved in, adjectives denote properties of entities, and adpositions denote (temporal and locational) relations between entities. The lexical categories, of course, do not exhaust the set of word classes; there are also FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES like complementizers, articles, numerals, and quantifiers. Such elements normally play a role in phrases headed by the lexical categories: articles, numerals and quantifiers are normally part of noun phrases and complementizers are part of clauses (that is, verbal phrases). For this reason, these functional elements will be discussed in relation to the lexical categories. The four main parts of SoD are given the subtitle Xs and X phrases, where X stands for one of the lexical categories. This subtitle expresses that each part discusses one lexical category and the ways in which it combines with other elements (like arguments and functional categories) to form constituents. Furthermore, the four main parts of SoD all have more or less the same overall organization in the sense that they contain (one or more) chapters on the following issues. I. Characterization and classification Each main part starts with an introductory chapter that provides a general characterization of the lexical category under discussion by describing some of its more conspicuous properties. The reader will find here not only a brief overview of the syntactic properties of these lexical categories, but also relevant discussions on morphology (e.g., inflection of verbs and adjectives) and semantics (e.g., the aspectual and tense properties of verbs). The introductory chapter will furthermore discuss ways in which the lexical categories can be divided into smaller natural subclasses.

xvi Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases II. Internal syntax The main body of the work is concerned with the internal structure of the °projections of lexical categories/heads. These projections can be divided into two subdomains, which are sometimes referred to as the lexical and the functional domain. Taken together, the two domains are sometimes referred to as the EXTENDED PROJECTION of the lexical head in question; cf. Grimshaw (1991). We will see that there is reason to assume that the lexical domain is embedded in the functional domain, as in (10), where LEX stands for the lexical heads V, N, A or P, and F stands for one or more functional heads like the article de ‘the’ or the complementizer dat ‘that’. (10)

[FUNCTIONAL ... F ... [LEXICAL .... LEX .....]]

The lexical domain of a lexical head is that part of its projection that affects its denotation. The denotation of a lexical head can be affected by its complements and its modifiers, as can be readily illustrated by means of the examples in (11). (11) a. b. c.

Jan leest. Jan reads Jan leest Jan reads Jan leest Jan reads

een krant. a newspaper nauwkeurig. carefully

The phrase een krant lezen ‘to read a newspaper’ in (11b) denotes a smaller set of states-of-affairs than the phrase lezen ‘to read’ in (11a), and so does the phrase nauwkeurig lezen ‘to read carefully’ in (11c). The elements in the functional domain do not affect the denotation of the lexical head but provide various sorts of additional information. A. The lexical domain I: Argument structure Lexical heads function as predicates, which means that they normally take arguments, that is, they enter into so-called thematic relations with entities that they semantically imply. For example, intransitive verbs normally take an agent as their subject; transitive verbs normally take an agent and a theme that are syntactically realized as, respectively, their subject and their object; and verbs like wachten ‘to wait’ normally take an agent that is realized as their subject and a theme that is realized as a prepositional complement. (12) a. b. c.

JanAgent Jan JanAgent Jan JanAgent Jan

lacht laughs weet een oplossingTheme. knows a solution wacht op de postbodeTheme waits for the postman

[intransitive verb] [transitive verb] [verb with PP-complement]

Although this is often less conspicuous with nouns, adjectives and prepositions, it is possible to describe examples like (13) in the same terms. The phrases between straight brackets can be seen as predicates that are predicated of the noun phrase

Preface and acknowledgments xvii Jan, which we may therefore call their logical SUBJECT (we use small caps to distinguish this notion from the notion of nominative subject of the clause). Furthermore, the examples in (13) show (a) that the noun vriend may combine with a PP-complement that explicates with whom the SUBJECT Jan is in a relation of friendship, (b) that the adjective trots ‘proud’ optionally may take a PP-complement that explicates the subject matter that the SUBJECT Jan is proud about, and (c) that the preposition onder ‘under’ may take a nominal complement that refers to the location of its SUBJECT Jan. (13) a. b. c.

Jan is [een vriend van Peter]. Jan is a friend of Peter Jan is [trots op zijn dochter]. Jan is proud of his daughter Marie stopt Jan [onder de dekens]. Marie puts Jan under the blankets

That the italicized phrases are complements is somewhat obscured by the fact that there are certain contexts in which they can readily be omitted (e.g., when they would express information that the addressee can infer from the linguistic or nonlinguistic context). The fact that they are always semantically implied, however, shows that they are semantically selected by the lexical head. B. The lexical domain II: Modification The projection consisting of a lexical head and its arguments can be modified in various ways. The examples in (14), for example, show that the projection of the verb wachten ‘to wait’ can be modified by various adverbial phrases. Examples (14a) and (14b), for instance, indicate when and where the state-of-affairs of Jan waiting for his father took place. (14) a

b.

Jan wachtte gisteren op zijn vader. Jan waited yesterday for his father ‘Jan waited for his father yesterday.’ Jan wacht op zijn vader bij het station. Jan waits for his father at the station ‘Jan is waiting for his father at the station.’

[time]

[place]

The examples in (15) show that the lexical projections of nouns, adjectives and prepositions can likewise be modified; the modifiers are italicized. (15) a. b. c.

Jan is een vroegere vriend van Peter. Jan is a former friend of Peter Jan is erg trots op zijn dochter. Jan is very proud of his daughter Marie stopt Jan diep onder de dekens. Marie puts Jan deep under the blankets

C. The functional domain Projections of the lexical heads may contain various elements that are not arguments or modifiers, and thus do not affect the denotation of the head noun.

xviii Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases Such elements simply provide additional information about the denotation. Examples of such functional categories are articles, numerals and quantifiers, which we find in the nominal phrases in (16). (16) a. b.

Jan is de/een vroegere Jan is the/a former Peter heeft twee/veel Jan has two/many

vriend van Peter. friend of Peter goede vrienden good friends

[article] [numeral/quantifier]

That functional categories provide additional information about the denotation of the lexical domain can readily be demonstrated by means of these examples. The definite article de in (16a), for example, expresses that the set denoted by the phrase vroegere vriend van Peter has just a single member; the use of the indefinite article een, on the other hand, suggests that there are more members in this set. Similarly, the use of the numeral twee ‘two’ in (16b) expresses that there are just two members in the set, and the quantifier veel ‘many’ expresses that the set is large. Functional elements that can be found in verbal projections are tense (which is generally expressed as inflection on the finite verb) and complementizers: the difference between dat ‘that’ and of ‘whether’ in (17), for example, is related to the illocutionary type of the expression: the former introduces embedded declarative and the latter embedded interrogative clauses. (17) a.

b.

Jan zegt [dat Marie ziek is]. Jan says that Marie ill is ‘Jan says that Marie is ill.’ Jan vroeg [of Marie ziek is]. Jan asked whether Marie ill is ‘Jan asked whether Marie is ill.’

[declarative]

[interrogative]

Given that functional categories provide information about the lexical domain, it is often assumed that they are part of a functional domain that is built on top of the lexical domain; cf. (10) above. This functional domain is generally taken to have an intricate structure and to be highly relevant for word order: functional heads are taken to project, just like lexical heads, and thus to create positions that can be used as landing sites for movement. A familiar case is wh-movement, which is assumed to target some position in the projection of the complementizer; in this way it can be explained that, in colloquial Dutch, wh-movement may result in placing the interrogative phrase to the immediate left of the complementizer of ‘whether’. This is shown in (18b), where the trace t indicates the original position of the moved whelement and the index i is just a convenient means to indicate that the two positions are related. Discussion of word order phenomena will therefore play a prominent role in the chapters devoted to the functional domain. (18) a.

b.

Jan zegt [dat Marie een boek van Louis Couperus gelezen heeft]. Jan says that Marie a book by Louis Couperus read has ‘Jan said that Marie has read a book by Louis Couperus.’ Marie ti gelezen heeft]. Jan vroeg [wati (of) Jan asked what whether Marie read has ‘Jan asked what Marie has read.’

Preface and acknowledgments xix Whereas (relatively) much is known about the functional domain of verbal and nominal projections, research on the functional domain of adjectival and prepositional phrases is still in its infancy. For this reason, the reader will find independent chapters on this issue only in the parts on verbs and nouns. III. External syntax The discussion of each lexical category will be concluded with a look at the external syntax of their projections, that is, an examination of how such projections can be used in larger structures. Adjectives, for example, can be used as °complementives (predicative complements of verbs), as attributive modifiers of noun phrases, and also as adverbial modifiers of verb phrases. (19) a. b. c.

Die auto is snel. that car is fast Een snelle auto a fast car De auto reed snel weg. the car drove quickly away ‘The car drove away quickly.’

[complementive use] [attributive use] [adverbial use]

Since the external syntax of the adjectival phrases in (19) can in principle also be described as the internal syntax of the verbal/nominal projections that contain these phrases, this may give rise to some redundancy. Complementives, for example, are discussed in Section V2.2 as part of the internal syntax of the verbal projection, but also in Sections N8.2, A6 and P4.2 as part of the external syntax of nominal, adjectival and adpositional phrases. We nevertheless have allowed this redundancy, given that it enables us to simplify the discussion of the internal syntax of verb phrases in V2.2: nominal, adjectival and adpositional complementives exhibit different behavior in various respects, and discussing all of these in Section V2.2 would have obscured the discussion of properties of complementives in general. Of course, a system of cross-references will inform the reader when a certain issue is discussed from the perspective of both internal and external syntax. 6. History of the project and future prospects The idea for the project was initiated in 1992 by Henk van Riemsdijk. In 1993 a pilot study was conducted at Tilburg University and a steering committee was installed after a meeting with interested parties from Dutch and Flemish institutions. However, it took five more years until in 1998 a substantial grant from the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO) was finally obtained. Funding has remained a problem, which is the reason that SoD still is not completed yet. However in the meantime financial guarantees have been created for Hans Broekhuis to finish all four main parts of SoD in the next four years. Due to the size of the complete set of materials comprising SoD, we have decided that the time has come to publish those parts that are currently available. In what follows we want to inform the reader of what has been done so far and what is to be expected in the near future.

xx Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases I. Noun and noun phrases (Hans Broekhuis, Evelien Keizer and Marcel den Dikken) Work on the present volume, Nouns and noun phrases, was started in 1998 by Marcel den Dikken, who, unfortunately, soon left the project for a position at the City University of New York. The work was continued by Evelien Keizer, who left the project at the end of 2000 in order to take up a position at University College London. The first full version of the manuscript was completed in 2003 by Hans Broekhuis. Although most parts of the manuscript have been worked on by more than one author, it is generally possible to point to one chief author. Evelien Keizer should be seen as the chief author of the bulk of the first three chapters. Marcel den Dikken wrote a first, extensive draft of Section 5.1 and should be seen as the main author of Chapter 7. Hans Broekhuis wrote the remaining parts and updated, revised and prepared the complete work for publication in 2008-2011. The complete text was copy-edited by Carole Boster; her suggestions for improvement went far beyond corrections of spelling, grammar and style, and have led to far-reaching reformulations of certain passages. II. Adjectives and adjective phrases (Hans Broekhuis) A first version of this work was completed in 1999 and has been updated, revised and prepared for publication in 2008-2011. This part is just over 600 pages and will be published in one volume by Amsterdam University Press in Spring 2013. III. Adpositions and adpositional phrases (Hans Broekhuis) A first version of this work was completed in 2002 and has been updated, revised and prepared for publication in 2008-2011. This part is about 400 pages and will be published by Amsterdam University Press in Fall 2013. IV. Verbs and Verb phrases (Hans Broekhuis and Norbert Corver) This work will consist of three volumes of about 600 pages each. The first volume is currently in the process of being prepared for publication. It will be published by Amsterdam University Press in Spring 2014. The two remaining volumes are in progress and are expected to be ready for publication before Spring 2016. In addition to the three main parts in I-IV, we have planned a separate volume in which topics like coordination and ellipsis (conjunction reduction, gapping, etc.) that cannot be done full justice within the main body of this work are discussed in more detail. Furthermore, the SoD project has become part of a broader project initiated by Hans Bennis and Geert Booij, called Language Portal Dutch/Frisian, which includes similar projects on the phonology and the morphology of Dutch. We may therefore expect that the SoD will at some point be complemented by a PoD and a MoD. The Language Portal also aims at making a version of all this material accessible via internet before January 2016, which will add various functionalities including advanced search options. Finally, we want to note that Henk van Riemsdijk and István Kenesei are currently in the process of initiating a number of grammar projects comparable to SoD: languages under discussion include Basque, Hungarian, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, and Turkish. For this reason, the volumes of SoD are published as part of the Comprehensive Grammar Resources series, which will bring together the future results of these initiatives.

Preface and acknowledgments xxi 7. Acknowledgments Over the years many Dutch linguists have commented on parts of the work presented here and since we do not want to tire the reader by providing long lists of names, we simply thank the whole Dutch linguistic community; this will also safeguard us from the embarrassment of forgetting certain names. Still, we do want to mention a couple of persons and institutions without whom/which this project would never have been started or brought to a good end. First we would like to thank the members of the steering committee (chaired by Henk van Riemsdijk) consisting of Hans Bennis, Martin Everaert, Liliane Haegeman, Anneke Neijt, and Georges de Schutter. Although all members provided us with comments on subparts of the manuscript, Liliane should be mentioned especially in the present context given that she wrote detailed comments on the full work published here. Second, we should mention Riet Vos, who discussed the manuscript with us and provided many suggestions for improvement. Finally, we would like to thank Sjef Barbiers and Norbert Corver for their willingness to draw attention to the SoD by writing reviews of the earlier versions of the manuscripts on nouns, adjectives and adpositions that were circulated among a small number of mainly Dutch linguists. The pilot study for the project, which was performed from November 1993 to September 1994, was made possible by a subsidy from the Center for Language Studies and the University of Tilburg. This pilot study resulted in a project proposal that was eventually granted by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) in 1998 and which enabled us to produce the main body of work mentioned in Section 6, sub I to III, during the period from May 1998 to May 2001. The work could be prepared for publication in the period from April 2008 to October 2010 thanks to a subsidy to Hans Broekhuis from the Truus und Gerrit van Riemsdijk-Stiftung. Since November 2010 Hans Broekhuis continues his work on SoD as an employee of the Meertens Institute (KNAW) in Amsterdam. SoD has become part of the project Language Portal Dutch/Frisian, which is again financed by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). We gratefully acknowledge the financial and moral support of these institutions and for the opportunity they have given us to develop SoD. November 2011 Hans Broekhuis Co-author and editor of Syntax of Dutch Henk van Riemsdijk Chairman of the steering committee

Introduction

Verbs (V), nouns (N), adjectives (A) and prepositions (P) constitute the four major word classes. The present study deals with nouns and their projections (noun phrases). The general introduction in Chapter 1 provides a survey of the most distinctive syntactic, semantic and morphological characteristics of noun phrases, as well as a semantic classification of nouns. Roughly speaking, the noun phrase consists of two subdomains: the lexical and the functional domain. The lexical subdomain consists of the head noun and its °arguments and °modifiers, which determine the denotation of the noun phrase; this domain will be called the NP-domain (or NP for short). The functional subdomain consists of the determiner and numerals/quantifiers, which determine the reference and/or the quantificational properties of the noun phrase; this domain will be called the DP-domain (or DP). The organization of this study reflects this division within the noun phrase. Chapter 2 through Chapter 4 discuss the NP-domain: complementation and modification of nouns are discussed in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, respectively, and Chapter 4 discusses so-called binominal constructions like een emmer peren ‘a bucket [of] pears’, that is, noun phrases that involve sequences of more than one noun. Chapter 5 through Chapter 7 focus on the DP-domain. Chapter 5 starts with a discussion of the determiners, which can be divided into at least the following subcategories: articles, demonstrative pronouns and possessive pronouns. According to some researchers, the personal pronouns can also be considered determiners, and they will therefore be discussed in this chapter as well. Although there are good reasons to also consider relative pronouns as determiners, we will discuss these for practical reasons in Section 3.3.2 on relative clauses. Chapter 6 continues with a discussion of the numerals and quantifiers like sommige ‘some’ and alle ‘all’. Chapter 7 concludes with a discussion of the so-called pre-determiner elements al and heel, which may modify the determiner. This study is concluded in Chapter 8, where we focus on the syntactic uses and the distribution of the noun phrase. Among other things, this chapter provides a discussion of °scrambling, that is, the position of noun phrases in the so-called °middle field of the clause. Before we start our discussion, we want to emphasize that, as above, we will make a terminological distinction between noun phrases, NPs and DPs in this study. The first notion is used when we need not make a distinction between the NP- and the DP-domain. The latter two notions, on the other hand, are used when we focus on certain aspects of the NP- or the DP-domain in the sense defined above. See Section 1.1.2 for a more detailed discussion of these notions.

Chapter 1 Nouns: characterization and classification

Introduction

5

1.1. 1.1.1. 1.1.2. 1.1.2.1. 1.1.2.2. 1.1.2.2.1. 1.1.2.2.2. 1.1.2.3. 1.1.2.4. 1.1.3.

Characterization Nominal features (number, gender and person) The internal structure of the noun phrase The NP-domain The DP-domain Determiners and quantifiers/numerals Pre-determiners Non-restrictive modifiers Order of elements within the noun phrase Syntactic uses and semantic functions of the noun phrase

5 5 8 8 9 9 12 12 13 14

1.2. 1.2.1. 1.2.1.1. 1.2.1.2. 1.2.1.2.1. 1.2.1.2.2. 1.2.1.2.3. 1.2.2. 1.2.2.1. 1.2.2.1.1. 1.2.2.1.2. 1.2.2.1.3. 1.2.2.1.4. 1.2.2.2. 1.2.2.2.1. 1.2.2.2.2. 1.2.3.

Classification Proper nouns Semantic properties Syntactic properties Proper nouns: prototypical and non-prototypical use Proper nouns used as common nouns Common nouns used as proper nouns Common nouns Concrete nouns Subclassification Differences between the subclasses Non-prototypical uses Special uses: exclamative and evaluative constructions Abstract nouns Subclassification Non-prototypical uses Relational versus non-relational nouns

16 17 18 19 19 23 24 25 25 26 27 30 36 38 38 44 45

1.3. 1.3.1. 1.3.1.1. 1.3.1.2. 1.3.1.2.1. 1.3.1.2.2. 1.3.1.2.3. 1.3.1.2.4. 1.3.1.2.5.

Derivation of nouns Deverbal nouns General properties of nominalization INF-nominalization (Infinitival nominals) Form of the derived noun Nominal properties Relation to the base verb Restrictions on the derivational process The degree of verbalness/nominalness

48 48 49 54 54 54 57 60 60

4 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases 1.3.1.3. 1.3.1.3.1. 1.3.1.3.2. 1.3.1.3.3. 1.3.1.3.4. 1.3.1.3.5. 1.3.1.4. 1.3.1.4.1. 1.3.1.4.2. 1.3.1.4.3. 1.3.1.4.4. 1.3.1.4.5. 1.3.1.5. 1.3.1.5.1. 1.3.1.5.2. 1.3.1.5.3. 1.3.1.5.4. 1.3.1.6. 1.3.2. 1.3.2.1. 1.3.2.2. 1.3.2.3. 1.3.2.4. 1.3.3. 1.3.4.

ING-nominalization Form of the derived noun Nominal properties Relation to the base verb Restrictions on the derivational process The degree of verbalness/nominalness GE-nominalization Form of the derived noun Nominal properties Relation to the base verb Restrictions on the derivational process The degree of verbalness/nominalness ER-nominalization Form of the derived noun Relation to the base verb Restrictions on the derivational process The degree of verbalness/nominalness Summary Deadjectival nouns Form and meaning of the derived noun Relation to the base adjective Restrictions on the derivational process Conclusion Denominal nouns Other cases

61 62 66 68 70 73 74 74 76 78 80 84 85 85 86 87 96 96 97 97 101 103 106 107 110

1.4.

Compounding

110

1.5.

Bibliographical notes

114

Characterization and classification 5 Introduction This chapter will largely be concerned with the most distinctive semantic, morphological and syntactic properties of nouns. Section 1.1 gives a brief characterization of the category of nouns and noun phrases by describing some of their more conspicuous properties. This will help users to identify nouns and noun phrases in Dutch on the basis of their form, function and position in the sentence. Section 1.2 presents a semantic classification of nouns and will describe the way in which the semantic differences are formally expressed. Like verbs and adjectives, nouns form an open class and, as such, cannot be exhaustively listed. New nominal elements are introduced into the language through derivation, compounding, loaning etc. Sections 1.3 and 1.4 contain a concise discussion of derivation and compounding, which, due to the complexity of these morphological processes, will remain relatively incomplete. The process of nominalization, however, will be discussed more extensively in Sections 2.2.3 and 2.2.4. For a comprehensive overview of Dutch morphology, the reader is referred to Booij (2002), De Haas & Trommelen (1993) and Haeseryn et al. (1997). 1.1. Characterization This section will give a brief and general characterization of Dutch nouns and noun phrases by means of some of their more conspicuous properties. This list of properties is not exhaustive and the discussion is necessarily sketchy and incomplete. Nevertheless, the information provided will help the reader to identify Dutch noun phrases and to gain some basic insight into their structure and their syntactic behavior. Section 1.1.1 will start by discussing some of the nominal features (number, person and gender), and illustrate their relevance on the basis of the personal and possessive pronouns. This is followed in Section 1.1.2 by a discussion of the internal organization of the noun phrase, and the semantic contribution of its various subparts. Section 1.1.3 concludes by giving a brief overview of the syntactic uses and the semantic functions of the noun phrase in the clause. 1.1.1. Nominal features (number, gender and person) This section briefly discusses the nominal features number, person and gender. These features play an important role in the description of agreement relations: number and person are relevant for subject-verb agreement; number and gender are relevant for agreement between the noun and its determiner and/or attributive adjectival °modifier(s). Moreover, we will show that all three types of nominal features are relevant for the characterization of the personal and possessive pronouns in Dutch. I. Number Noun phrases are normally specified for number. Although some noun phrases are always singular (e.g., noun phrases headed by a substance noun like water) or plural (the so-called PLURALIA TANTUM like de tropen ‘the tropics’), the vast majority of nouns can have either a singular or a plural form. Morphologically speaking,

6 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases pluralization is generally signaled by adding one of two endings: the ending -(e)n or the ending –s. A small number of nouns, like methode ‘method’, can take either ending. A very small group of nouns form their plural by means of the suffix -eren. Plural formation is illustrated in example (1). (1) Plural formation SUFFIX

SINGULAR

PLURAL

-en -s -en or -s -eren

hond ‘dog’ sleutel ‘key’ methode ‘method’ kind ‘child’

honden ‘dogs’ sleutels ‘keys’ methodes/n ‘methods’ kinderen ‘children’

The ending is mostly determined by phonological and/or morphological properties of the nominal stem. The ending -en (pronounced as schwa in most varieties of Dutch) is by far the most common one, and is generally found after nouns ending in a stressed syllable; the affix -s, on the other hand, is generally used after stressed syllables. As a result of this, plural nouns generally end in a trochee, that is a sequence of a stressed and an unstressed syllable; cf. Booij (2002). This means that the majority of monosyllabic nouns like hond ‘dog’ in (2a) as well as the majority of polysyllabic nouns with stress on the final syllable, like kanón ‘gun’ in (2b), take the ending -en; nouns like kánon ‘canon’ with penultimate stress, on the other hand, normally take the -s ending. (2)

a. b. c.

hONDen ‘dogs’ kanONnen ‘guns’ KAnons ‘canons’

There are many exceptional cases, however, which sometimes can be explained by considering the history of the word, but since we do not aim at giving a full description of all the intricacies involved in plural formation, we refer the reader to De Haas & Trommelen (1993: 157ff.) Haeseryn et al. (1997), and Booij (2002: Section 2.2.1) for a complete overview of the rules for pluralization and exceptions to these rules. For a (perhaps somewhat surprising) description of the meaning of the plural morpheme, see Section 5.1.1.1. II. Gender Dutch nouns can be feminine, masculine or neuter. As we will see shortly, the distinction between neuter and non-neuter nouns can be readily observed from the syntactic behavior of the nouns. The difference between masculine and feminine nouns, on the other hand, has no syntactic or morphological reflex in Standard Dutch, and can only be observed when the pronoun hij/zij ‘he/she’ is used to refer to a previously mentioned noun phrase. It therefore does not come as a surprise that for many speakers, this distinction is more or less neutralized, so that they have to take recourse to a dictionary when they want to make the distinctions (especially in writing, where distinguishing between masculine and feminine nouns is still the norm). Leaving personal pronouns aside, many (if not most) speakers of most

Characterization and classification 7 varieties of Dutch actively operate with a binary opposition between [+NEUTER] and [-NEUTER] nouns; see Section 5.2.1.1.5 for more discussion. The most conspicuous difference between [+NEUTER] and [-NEUTER] nouns is the choice of definite article: singular [+NEUTER] nouns take the definite article het, while singular [-NEUTER] (and plural) nouns are preceded by the definite article de. For this reason the two types of nouns are often referred to as HET- and DE-nouns, respectively. Gender also affects the form of demonstrative/possessive pronouns, some quantifiers, attributively used adjectives and relative pronouns. Examples are given in Table 1, which also provides references to the sections where more information about these agreement patterns can be found. Table 1: Gender

DEFINITE ARTICLES

DEMONSTRATIVES

POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS QUANTIFIERS

ATTRIBUTIVE ADJECTIVES RELATIVE PRONOUNS

[+NEUTER]

[-NEUTER]

SECTION

het boek the book dit/dat boek this/that book ons boek our book elk boek each book een rood boek a red book het boek dat ik las the book that I read

de pen the pen deze/die pen this/that pen onze pen our pen elke pen each pen een rode pen a red pen de pen die ik heb gekocht the pen that I have bought

5.1 5.2.3 5.2.2 6.2 3.5 3.3.2.1

The Dutch determiner system differs from the pronominal system, which still has a three-way distinction between masculine, feminine and neuter gender. This mismatch seems to result in the system of pronominal reference, where syntactic agreement in gender features is gradually replaced by a system in which the choice of the pronoun is determined by semantic factors; cf. Section 5.2.1.1.3. It is further interesting to note that the determiner systems of many Dutch dialects differ from the Standard Dutch one in exhibiting a three-way distinction between; see Cornips & De Vogelaer (2009) and references given there. III. Person The person features are relevant for pronouns only, since lexical noun phrases like het boek ‘the book’ and de man ‘the man’ are always third person. Person features can best be described by appealing to notions of discourse, as in (3). FIRST PERSON refers to a set of entities including the speaker (the speaker may of course also exhaust the set). SECOND PERSON refers to a set of entities including the addressee but excluding the speaker: when the speaker is included the first person is used. THIRD PERSON refers to a set of entities excluding both the speaker and the addressee. (3)

a. b. c.

First person: [+SPEAKER] [±ADDRESSEE] Second person: [-SPEAKER] [+ADDRESSEE] Third person: [-SPEAKER] [-ADDRESSEE]

8 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases IV. Illustration: personal and possessive pronouns All nominal features discussed above are relevant for the classification of the personal and possessive pronouns in Dutch. These pronouns have either a singular or a plural form. We also have to distinguish between the three persons. The third person pronouns are further divided into three groups on the basis of gender. This leads to the classification given in Table 2. Note that a complete classification of the personal and possessive pronouns requires more distinctions, but we postpone the discussion of these to Section 5.2, where the pronouns are discussed more extensively. Table 2: Personal and possessive pronouns SINGULAR PERSONAL

ST

1 PERSON 2ND PERSON 3RD MASCULINE PERSON

FEMININE NEUTER

PLURAL POSSES-

PERSONAL

POSSES-

SUBJECT

OBJECT

SIVE

SUBJECT

OBJECT

SIVE

ik jij hij zij het

mij jou hem haar het

mijn jouw zijn haar zijn

wij jullie zij

ons jullie hen/hun

ons jullie hun

1.1.2. The internal structure of the noun phrase This section will discuss the overall internal structure of the noun phrase. We will distinguish two syntactic domains. The first domain, which we will call the NPdomain, is headed by the noun. The second domain is the DP, which is often assumed to be headed by a determiner, quantifier or a numeral. We will discuss these two domains in 1.1.2.1 and 1.1.2.2, respectively. Section 1.1.2.3 is devoted to a brief discussion of non-restrictive modifiers of the noun phrase. This section will be concluded with some remarks on word order restrictions within the noun phrase. 1.1.2.1. The NP-domain The NP-domain consists of the head noun, its °complement(s) and its restrictive °modifier(s). Leaving irrelevant details aside, the structure of the NP is normally assumed to be as indicated in (4a). A complement occurs right-adjacent to the noun in the form of a PP (unless the noun is a nominal infinitive, in which case the complement may occur in pronominal position as a noun phrase); an example is given in (4b). Restrictive modifiers can be either pre- or postnominal. The prenominal position is normally occupied by an attributive adjective, as illustrated in (4c), whereas the postnominal modifier normally has the form of a PP or a restrictive relative clause. The postnominal modifier normally follows the complement of the noun; we illustrate this with a PP-modifier in (4d).

Characterization and classification 9 (4)

a. b. c. d.

[NP AP N complement-PP] de [NP vernietiging [COMPL van Rome]] the destruction of Rome een [NP [AP erg dik] boek] a very thick book de [NP vernietiging van Rome [PP in 410 A.D.]] the destruction of Rome in 410 A.D.

For our present purposes, this brief introduction of the internal structure of the NP suffices. An exhaustive discussion of complementation of the noun can be found in Chapter 2. Modification of the NP is the topic of Chapter 3, and will also be extensively discussed in Chapters A5 and A9. Semantically speaking, the NP determines the denotation of the complete noun phrase. A noun like boek ‘book’ can be said to denote a set of entities with certain properties. Modification of the noun involves modification of the set denoted by the noun phrase; the NP erg dik boek ‘very thick book’, for example, denotes a subset of the set denoted by boek. The NP-domain itself does not encode the fact that noun phrases are normally used as referring expressions; Section 1.1.2.2 will show that this is the semantic function of the elements constituting the DP-domain. 1.1.2.2. The DP-domain This section will briefly discuss the lexical elements that are found in the DPdomain (the determiners, quantifiers and numerals), characterize the semantic contribution that these elements make, and also introduce the so-called predeterminers al and heel that can be used to modify certain determiners. 1.1.2.2.1. Determiners and quantifiers/numerals In current linguistic theory, determiners, quantifiers and numerals are generally assumed to be external to the NP-domain, and are taken to function as the head of a °projection containing the NP-domain, as in (5). (5)

[DP ... D ... [NP ... N ...]]

This implies that elements such as a determiner or quantifier are assumed to be the head of the full noun phrase, and it is these elements that determine the referential and/or the quantificational properties of the noun phrase. The determiner slot D can be left empty or be filled by one of the elements in Table 3. Table 3: Determiners and quantifiers/numerals ARTICLES

DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS POSSESSIVE NPS AND PRONOUNS QUANTIFIERS AND NUMERALS

het boek the book dit/dat boek this/that book Jans/zijn boek Jan’s/his book

een boek a book deze/die pen this/that pen mijn moeders/haar pen my mother’s/her pen

∅ boeken ∅ books deze/die boeken these/those books onze boeken our books

veel boeken many books

elk boek every book

twee boeken two books

10 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases The assumption that articles, demonstratives and possessive pronouns occupy the position D accounts for the fact that these elements are in complementary distribution, since it is generally accepted that a head position of a phrase can be occupied by one head only. This claim has furthermore given rise to the hypothesis that the noun phrase may contain more projections than those identified in (5): DP and NP. This is related to the fact that numerals and some quantifiers can be combined with articles, demonstratives and possessive pronouns. Quantifiers and numerals have therefore been claimed to head the projections QP and/or NumP. Under this hypothesis, an example like mijn vijf broers would have the articulated structure in (6). (6)

[DP mijn [NUMP vijf [NP broers]]]

Though questions concerning the number of projections involved are obviously of interest (see Alexiadou et al., 2007: part II, for discussion), the main point to remember here is that determiners and quantifiers/numerals are assumed to be external to the NP, which implies that they have no effect on the denotation of the (modified) noun. Their semantic contribution is restricted to the referential and/or quantificational properties of the noun phrase as a whole. Below, we will briefly illustrate this by means of examples in which the noun phrase acts as the subject of the clause. But before we can do this, we will provide some background by briefly outlining the set-theoretic treatment of the subject-predicate relation, which will be central to our discussion of the denotational properties of the NP. Certain aspects of the meaning of a clause can be expressed by means of set theory: an example like Jan loopt op straat ‘Jan is walking in the street’ expresses that the singleton set denoted by the proper noun Jan is included in the set denoted by the verb phrase loopt op straat ‘walks in the street’. More generally, the subjectpredicate relation in a clause can be expressed by means of Figure 1, where A represents the set denoted by the NP and B indicates the set denoted by the verb phrase. The intersection A ∩ B denotes the set of entities for which the proposition expressed by the clause is claimed to be true.

A

B

A∩B Figure 1: Set-theoretic representation of the subject-predicate relation

In an example like Jan en Marie wandelen op straat ‘Jan and Marie are walking in the street’, it is claimed that the complete set denoted by A, viz. {Jan, Marie}, is included in set B, which is constituted by the people walking in the street. In other words, it expresses that the intersection (A ∩ B) exhausts set A so that the remainder of set A is empty: A - (A ∩ B) = ∅. The semantic function of determiners and quantifiers/numerals is to specify the intersection A ∩ B and the

Characterization and classification 11 remainder of A - (A ∩ B). Here we will informally describe this for some determiners and quantifiers/numerals. A more exhaustive and formal description can be found in Chapter 6. The definite article de/het in (7) expresses that in the domain of discourse all entities that satisfy the description of the NP are included in the intersection A ∩ B, that is, that A - (A ∩ B) = ∅. The singular noun phrase de jongen ‘the boy’ in (7a) has therefore approximately the same interpretation as the proper noun Jan in the discussion above; it expresses that the cardinality of A ∩ B is 1 (for this we will use the notation: |A ∩ B| = 1). The plural example in (7) differs from the singular example only in that it expresses that |A ∩ B| > 1. (7)

a. b.

De jongen loopt op straat. the boy walks in the.street De jongens lopen op straat. the boys walk in the.street

The meaning of a definite demonstrative pronoun like deze ‘this/these’ and die ‘that/these’ or a possessive pronoun like mijn is similar to that of the definite article, the only difference being that these determiners effect a partitioning of the set denoted by A, and claim that one of the resulting subsets is properly included in B. The semantic contribution of the indefinite articles in (8a&b) is to indicate that A ∩ B is not empty, but they do not imply anything about the set A - (A ∩ B); the latter may or may not be empty (the other boys included in set A may all be in school). The difference between the singular indefinite article een and the (phonetically empty) plural indefinite article ∅ is that the former expresses that |A ∩ B| = 1, whereas the latter expresses that the cardinality can be larger than 1. At least semantically speaking, the cardinal numerals belong to the same class as the plural indefinite article; an example such as (8c) is similar in all respects to (8b) apart from the fact that it expresses that |A ∩ B| = 2. (8)

a.

b.

c.

Er loopt een jongen op straat. there walks a boy in the.street ‘A boy is walking in the street.’ Er lopen ∅ jongens op straat. there walk boys in the.street ‘Boys are walking in the street.’ Er lopen twee jongens op straat. there walk two boys in the.street ‘Two boys are walking in the street.’

The semantic contribution of quantifiers like enkele ‘some’, veel ‘many’ and weinig ‘few’ can be described in similar terms. The main difference is that the cardinality of the set A ∩ B is somewhat vaguer: an example like (9a) expresses more or less the same as (8b), but in addition the use of enkele suggests that the cardinality of A ∩ B is lower than some implicitly assumed norm “c”: 1 < |A ∩ B| < c. The interpretation of the quantifiers veel and weinig also seems to depend on some implicitly assumed norm: veel expresses that |A ∩ B| > c′ and

12 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases weinig that |A ∩ B| < c′′. In the case of enkele in (9a), the implicit norm c seems more or less fixed; the cardinality of the set of boys walking in the street will never be higher than, say, eight or nine. In the case of veel and weinig, on the other hand, the implicitly assumed norm is contextually determined: a hundred visitors may count as many at a vernissage but as few at a concert of the Rolling Stones. Note further that, as in the case of the indefinite articles and numerals, the examples in (9) do not imply anything about the set A - (A ∩ B). (9)

a.

b.

Er lopen enkele jongens op straat. there walk some boys in the.street ‘Some boys are walking in the street.’ Er lopen veel/weinig jongens op straat. there walk many/few boys in the.street ‘Many/few boys are walking in the street.’

When we combine a definite determiner and a numeral/quantifier the meanings of the two are combined. An example such as (10a) expresses that |A ∩ B| = 2, which can be seen as the semantic contribution of the numeral twee ‘two’, and that A - (A ∩ B) = ∅, which can be seen as the semantic contribution of the definite article de. Similarly, (10b) expresses that |A ∩ B| > c, which is the contribution of the quantifier, and that A - (A ∩ B) = ∅, which is the contribution of the definite article de. (10) a. b.

De twee jongens the two boys De vele jongens the two boys

wandelen walk wandelen walk

op straat. in the.street op straat. in the.street

1.1.2.2.2. Pre-determiners Special attention must be paid to a set of expressions that are often referred to as These expressions are quantifiers that may appear in a position left-adjacent to the determiners. Some examples are given in (11), where the determiners mijn ‘my’ and de ‘the’ in the determiner position are preceded by the pre-determiners al ‘all’ and heel ‘whole/all of the’. The semantics of these predeterminers is extremely complex. Therefore, we will not discuss these elements here, but refer the reader to the extensive discussion in Chapter 7. PRE-DETERMINERS.

(11) a. b.

al mijn boeken all my books heel de taart whole the cake ‘all of the cake’

1.1.2.3. Non-restrictive modifiers Some examples of non-restrictive modification are given in (12): non-restrictive modifiers typically take the form of non-restrictive relative clauses, as in (12a), but they can occasionally also be adjectival or nominal in nature, as in (12b&c).

Characterization and classification 13 Semantically speaking, non-restrictive modifiers are outside both NP and DP, and contain material that falls outside the °scope of the noun and determiner: nonrestrictive modifiers neither affect the denotation of the NP nor the referential or quantificational properties of the noun phrase as a whole, but just provide additional information about the referent of the noun phrase. Syntactically speaking, however, the non-restrictive modifiers in (12) clearly belong to the noun phrase, since they occupy the clause-initial position together with the DP (the °constituency test). (12) a.

b.

c.

Het boek, dat ik graag wilde hebben, was net uitverkocht. the book that I gladly wanted have was just sold.out ‘The book, which I very much wanted to have, was just sold out.’ De man, boos over zijn behandeling, diende een klacht in. the man angry about his treatment deposited a complaint prt. ‘The man, who was angry about his treatment, deposited a complaint.’ Het boek, een eerste druk van Karakter, werd verkocht voor € 10,000. the book a first edition of Karakter was sold for € 10,000

1.1.2.4. Order of elements within the noun phrase The previous sections have shown that the structure of the noun phrase is more or less as indicated in (13a). Putting certain co-occurrence restrictions and special intonation patterns aside for the moment, this structure allows us to provide a descriptively adequate account for the main word order patterns found within the noun phrase. For example, (13a) predicts that the determiners always precede the noun and its adjectival premodifiers and that the determiner can only be preceded by the pre-determiners al and heel, that is, that a numeral or quantifier must follow the determiner (if present). In other words, the structure in (13a) correctly predicts that there are no alternative realizations of the prenominal string al de vier aardige N in example (13b). Similarly, it predicts that an example like (13b) has no alternative word order pattern for the post-nominal PPs: the PP van de Verenigde Staten is the complement of the deverbal noun vertegenwoordiger, and is hence expected to precede the PP-modifier uit New York. (13) a. b.

[DP al/heel D [NUMP/QP Num/Q [NP A N complement]]] non-restr. modifiers al de vier aardige vertegenwoordigers van de VS uit New York all the four nice representatives of the US from New York

There are, however, various complicating factors. Consider, for instance, the examples in (14) involving the deverbal noun behandeling ‘treatment’. The noun phrase Jan in (14a) can be considered a complement of the head noun, just as it would be a complement of the verb behandelen ‘to treat’ in the clause De dokter behandelt Jan in het ziekenhuis ‘The doctor is treating Jan in hospital’. Example (14b) shows, however, that the noun phrase Jan can also be realized as a genitive noun phrase, in which case it precedes the noun behandeling and the attributive adjective langdurig ‘protracted’. In order to account for this, it is generally assumed that the complement of a noun can also be realized as a genitive noun phrase, which is placed in the determiner position (just like possessive pronouns). For completeness’ sake, note that Section 5.2.2.5.1 will show that (in contrast to

14 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases English) Dutch exhibits severe restrictions on the noun phrase types that may occur as genitive noun phrases. (14) a. b.

de langdurige behandeling van Jan in het ziekenhuis the protracted treatment of Jan in the hospital Jans langdurige behandeling in het ziekenhuis Jan’s protracted treatment in the hospital

Another complication is that the complements of nominal infinitives may also occur in the form of a noun phrase in prenominal position. Still, example (15a) shows that the unmarked position of the complement is after the attributive adjectives, so that we can simply assume that, like the postnominal PP-complements, the pre-nominal nominal complements must be closer to the head noun than the modifiers. (15) a.

Het gebruikelijke tomaten gooien bleef niet uit. the customary tomatoes throwing remained not prt. ‘The customary throwing of tomatoes followed.’ b. *Het tomaten gebruikelijke gooien bleef niet uit.

For a more detailed discussion of complementation and modification, and of the problems concerning word order within noun phrases, see Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. 1.1.3. Syntactic uses and semantic functions of the noun phrase This section briefly illustrates the semantic and syntactic functions of the noun phrase. Although noun phrases are prototypically used as arguments, they can also be used predicatively or adverbially. The discussion here will remain sketchy and incomplete, and the reader is referred to Chapter 8 for more details and discussion. I. Argument Prototypically, a noun phrase is used as an argument. Although noun phrases may also act as the argument of an adjective or an adposition, the discussion here will be confined to their function as argument of the verb. The fact that noun phrases can be used as arguments is related to the fact that they are typically used to refer to (possibly singleton) sets of entities. As pointed out in 1.1.2, the NP part of the noun phrase provides the descriptive information needed for identifying the set of entities in question, and the DP part determines the referential or quantificational properties of the noun phrase as a whole. These sets of entities function as participants in the state of affairs denoted by the verb; they are assigned the °thematic roles of agents, themes, recipients, benefactives etc. by the verb. Some examples are given in (16). In the intransitive construction in (16a), the only participant, Jan, performs the action of working and is thus assigned the semantic function of agent. In the transitive construction in (16b), Jan is assigned the same semantic role, but now a second entity is involved, a book, which undergoes the action of buying and is called the theme. In (16c&d), there is a third participant in the state of affairs: in (16c) this third participant, the one receiving the theme entity, functions as the recipient; in (16d), the state of affairs is performed on behalf of a particular entity, which is assigned the role of benefactive. In example

Characterization and classification 15 (16e) we find a construction with an °unaccusative verb; in such constructions the only participant, Jan, receives the semantic function of theme. (16) a. b. c. d. e.

JanAgent werkt hard. Jan works hard JanAgent koopt een boekTheme. Jan buys a book JanAgent geeft het boekTheme aan MarieRecipient. Jan gives the book to Marie JanAgent koopt een boekTheme voor MarieBenificiary. Jan buys a book for Marie JanTheme komt altijd te laat. Jan comes always too late ‘Jan is always late.’

[intransitive verb] [transitive verb] [ditransitive verb] [ditransitive verb] [unaccusative verb]

The semantic roles are often associated with a particular syntactic function in the clause. The agent is generally the subject of an active clause (16a-d), the theme is typically realized as the direct object (16b-d), and the recipient and benefactive are generally realized as indirect objects (16c&d). It is however certainly not the case that there is a one-to-one mapping between semantic role and syntactic function; for instance, in the case of an unaccusative verb, the theme is realized as the subject (16e), and not as the expected direct object. Since it is neither our aim to give an exhaustive overview in this section of the semantic roles that can be assigned to noun phrases, nor to discuss how these roles can be realized syntactically, we refer the reader to Chapter V2 for more detailed discussion of verb types and the semantic roles they may assign. II. Predicative use of the noun phrase Although typically used as arguments, noun phrases also function as predicates, in which case the noun phrase is not used to refer to an entity or a set of entities but to predicate a property of some other noun phrase. Typical cases are found in copular and vinden-constructions, illustrated in (17a&b). In these examples, the noun phrase Jan is the °logical SUBJECT of the predicatively used noun phrase een aardige jongen: Jan is referential, een aardige jongen is not. The predicative relationship between the two noun phrases is syntactically reflected by the fact that they must agree in number, as is shown by the primed examples; see Section 8.2.2 for one exception to this agreement requirement. (17) a.

Jan is een aardige jongen. Jan is a nice boy a′. [Jan en Peter]pl zijn [aardige jongens]pl Jan and Peter are nice boys b. Ik vind Jan een aardige jongen. I consider Jan a nice boy b′. Ik vind [Jan en Peter]pl [aardige jongens]pl. I consider Jan en Peter nice boys

16 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases III. Adverbial use of noun phrases A small number of noun phrases can be used as adverbial phrases modifying the clause. These noun phrases include head nouns that have a temporal denotation, as in examples (18a&b), or that can be used to indicate a period of time, as in example (18c). More or less the same meaning can be conveyed by a PP introduced by gedurende ‘during’. (18) a.

b.

c.

Marie heeft (gedurende) deze week hard gewerkt. Marie has during this week hard worked ‘Marie (has) worked hard this week.’ Peter woont (gedurende) het hele jaar in Zuid-Frankrijk. Peter lives during the whole year in South-France ‘Peter lives in the South of France throughout the year.’ Jan heeft (gedurende) de hele reis zitten slapen. Jan has during the whole journey sit sleeping ‘Jan slept throughout the journey.’

However, there are a number of subtle meaning differences between constructions with an °adjunct DP and a PP introduced by gedurende. Apart from the fact that the latter is more formal, use of the adjunct DP deze week seems to suggest that Marie has been working hard all week; use of the PP gedurende deze week does not trigger this interpretation (even making it implausible). Furthermore, the period of time referred to may vary. In (18a), the DP deze week refers to the span of time stretching from Monday to Sunday directly preceding or including the speech time, whereas in the case of the PP gedurende deze week reference can also be made to a particular week in the past. Observe that the choice of the demonstrative plays a role here as well: when the proximate demonstrative deze ‘this’ is replaced by the distal demonstrative die ‘that’, the second meaning difference is lost, with both phrases referring then to a particular week in the past (or the future). 1.2. Classification This section provides a semantic classification of nouns on the basis of the kind of entity they denote. Typically, the semantic differences between the noun classes that we will distinguish are also reflected in their syntactic and morphological properties. Although there seem to be as many different typologies of Dutch nouns as there are grammatical descriptions, there nevertheless are a number of distinctions that are more or less generally accepted. In traditional grammar, the distinctions in (19a-c) have generally been used for classifying nouns; cf. Haeseryn et al. (1997: 140ff). More recently, theory-specific approaches like Dik’s (1997) Functional Grammar and Lexical Functional Grammar have added the distinctions in (19d-e). Unfortunately, the relation(s) between these various distinctions is not always clear: some are complementary, some overlap, whereas others operate independently. In what follows, we will describe the distinctions in (19) in some detail in an attempt to clarify the relations between them. In addition, examples will be given of non-prototypical uses of the various noun types, that is, of the ways in which nouns belonging to one category can be used, semantically as well as syntactically, as though they belonged to another category.

Characterization and classification 17 (19) a. b. c. d. e.

Proper and common (or descriptive) nouns Concrete and abstract nouns Mass, count and collective nouns Nouns denoting states of affairs, propositions, speech acts and properties Relational and non-relational nouns

This section presents a classification that includes all five distinctions in (19) but reduces them to three partly overlapping, but nevertheless independent, main categories. The discussion is structured as follows. Section 1.2.1 starts with a discussion of the differences between proper nouns, such as Jan and De Alpen ‘The Alps’, and common nouns, such as jongen ‘boy’ and berg ‘mountain’. In Section 1.2.2, common nouns will be divided into concrete and abstract nouns, which will each in their turn be divided into several other subclasses, as shown in Table 4. The table also shows that some of the resulting subclasses will be further divided into subcategories. Table 4: Classification of common nouns CONCRETE NOUNS

ABSTRACT NOUNS

substance nouns individual nouns mass nouns collective nouns state-of-affairs actions nouns processes positions states proposition nouns speech-act nouns property nouns physical mental emotion nouns

water ‘water’ auto ‘car’ vee ‘cattle’ kudde ‘flock’ verwoesting ‘destruction’ val ‘fall’ (het) wonen ‘living’ verblijf ‘stay’ geloof ‘belief’ vraag ‘question’ hoogte ‘height’ geduld ‘patience’ haat ‘hatred’

Section 1.2.3, finally, discusses the differences between relational nouns like vader ‘father’ versus non-relational nouns like jongen ‘boy’. Chapter 2 will discuss in more detail the differences between the classes distinguished above with regard to complementation within the NP. 1.2.1. Proper nouns We start the discussion of the typology of nouns with what appears to be the most basic distinction: that between proper nouns and common nouns. Common nouns are nouns with descriptive content or meaning in the sense that they denote entities by providing an appropriate description of the entities. Syntactically, common nouns constitute the head of a noun phrase: they are preceded by a determiner (an article, demonstrative or possessive pronoun, etc.), they may be modified by adjectives or postnominal adjuncts and they may take one or more complements. Proper nouns like Jan, on the other hand, have little or no descriptive content. Typically, they form noun phrases all by themselves and lack modifiers and complements.

18 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases (20) Difference between proper nouns and common nouns PROPER NOUNS

COMMON NOUNS

— — — —

+ + + +

HAVE DESCRIPTIVE CONTENT CAN BE PRECEDED BY A DETERMINER CAN BE MODIFIED MAY TAKE COMPLEMENTS

This section will be mainly devoted to a discussion of the class of proper nouns: Sections 1.2.1.1 and 1.2.1.2 will discuss, respectively, their semantic syntactic properties. 1.2.1.1. Semantic properties Proper nouns can refer to both concrete and abstract entities. Some obvious examples are given in (21), which simply provides some examples and is certainly not intended as an exhaustive classification. (21) Types of proper nouns (not exhaustive) TYPE

NAME OF

EXAMPLE

Concrete

persons, animals and brands cities and countries, etc.

Jan, Flipper, Heineken Amsterdam, België ‘Belgium’ De Verenigde Staten ‘the United States’ de Westertoren, Villa des Roses Karakter (novel by Bordewijk) De aardappeleters (by Van Gogh) de Franse Revolutie ‘the French Revolution’ de Renaissance ‘the Renaissance’ het Quartair ‘the Quaternary’ Relativiteitstheorie ‘Theory of Relativity’ Communisme ‘Communism’ maandag ‘Monday’, januari ‘January’, Pasen ‘Easter’

buildings, restaurants, etc. books, paintings, etc. Abstract

historic events historical and geological periods theories and ideologies days, months, etc.

Semantically, these proper nouns are characterized by the fact that they normally contain little or no descriptive content; they can be said to have no denotation, only reference. In other words, whereas common nouns enable the addressee to pick out the intended referent (set) by means of the descriptive content of the noun, proper nouns normally do not have such descriptive content (they do not denote a set with the property mentioned). As a result, proper nouns will normally not be translatable; the English rendering of Dutch Jan is just Jan (and not John or something of the sort), although there are many exceptions to this general rule. For example, de Franse Revolutie ‘the French Revolution’ does have descriptive content and can, indeed, be translated. The same thing holds for geographical names that have descriptive content: het Zwarte Woud ‘the Black Forest’, de Dode Zee ‘the Dead Sea’ and de Verenigde Staten ‘the United States’. Note that many other geographical names have their own form in different languages (e.g., Duitsland

Characterization and classification 19 ‘Germany’, Noorwegen ‘Norway’), but these, obviously, are not true instances of translation. Let us compare common nouns and proper nouns to clarify matters. The noun phrase de aansteker ‘the lighter’ in (22a) has denotation as well as reference: its head noun, aansteker ‘lighter’, denotes the set of things with the particular property of being a lighter; the noun phrase de aansteker as a whole refers to a unique entity (in the given context) which is identifiable on account of this description. The noun Jan in (22b), on the other hand, lacks a denotation: it has no meaning and does not denote a set of entities by providing an appropriate description of these entities. It does, however, have (unique) reference: the proper noun by itself is sufficiently informative (in the given context) for any addressee to identify the person referred to. (22) a.

b.

Mag ik de aansteker, alsjeblieft? may I the lighter please ‘Can I have the lighter, please?’ Heb jij Jan nog gezien? have you Jan yet seen ‘Have you seen Jan (lately)?’

In essence, what distinguishes proper nouns from common nouns is that the former by definition “uniquely identify” their referent: when using a proper noun, the speaker assumes that the addressee will be able to pick out the intended referent without any need for further description. 1.2.1.2. Syntactic properties Section 1.2.1.2.1 will show that, with regard to syntactic behavior, proper nouns behave differently from common nouns in a number of ways. As will be discussed in Section 1.2.1.2.2, however, there are cases in which proper nouns can be used as regular common nouns. Conversely, there are also cases in which common nouns are used as proper nouns, and these cases are discussed in Section 1.2.1.2.3. 1.2.1.2.1. Proper nouns: prototypical and non-prototypical use Proper nouns behave differently from common nouns in a number of ways. These differences are largely due to the fact that proper nouns, in their prototypical use, have unique reference. In what follows we will first describe this prototypical use and the consequences with regard to modification and determination. This is followed by a discussion of more exceptional cases. I. Prototypical use In their prototypical use, proper nouns exhibit a number of typical restrictions with respect to pluralization, restrictive modification, and the selection of determiners. These restrictions can all be related to the fact that, in its prototypical use, a proper noun has unique reference: this makes the addition of restrictive modifiers superfluous and the addition of a determiner and pluralization impossible.

20 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases A. Pluralization The primeless examples in (23) show that proper nouns cannot be pluralized, except when the proper noun phrase itself is formally plural. Example (23b′) shows that in the latter case the singular will not be available (at least not as a proper noun). (23) a. *de Jannen/de Maries b. de Alpen/de Verenigde Staten the Alps/the United States b′. een #Alp/Verenigde Staat

B. Restrictive modification The (a)-examples in (24) show that proper nouns do not allow any form of modification aimed at restricting the number of potential referents: (24a) is acceptable but only when the attributive adjective is used non-restrictively, that is, provides additional information about the referent of the noun phrase; (24a′) becomes acceptable when the relative clause is preceded by an intonation break, which is the landmark of the non-restrictive use of such clauses. Example (24b) shows that if the proper noun itself contains a (restrictive) modifier, this cannot be omitted without the noun phrase losing its status of proper noun. (24) a.

#

de hoge Westertoren the high Westertoren a′. *De Westertoren die hoog is. the Westertoren that high is b. de #(Franse) Revolutie the French Revolution

C. Determiners Unlike common nouns, proper nouns typically are not acceptable with an article, except in those cases where the article can be regarded as part of the name (sometimes spelt with a capital: De Volkskrant). Proper nouns similarly fail to cooccur with demonstrative pronouns or with other determiners. These restrictions are illustrated in (25). (25) a. b.

(*de/*die) Jan/Marie het Zwarte Woud the Black Forest b′. *dit/dat Zwarte Woud this/that Black Forest

It must be noted, however, that in certain southern dialects of Dutch, use of the definite article or a possessive pronoun is acceptable with proper nouns referring to persons: de/onze Jan. II. Non-prototypical use There are numerous occasions where proper nouns exhibit deviant behavior, that is, in which they can be pluralized, or in which they are compatible with determiners and with modifiers. This is generally the result of failure of the proper noun to refer

Characterization and classification 21 uniquely within the given context. A more detailed discussion of these nonprototypical uses of the proper nouns can be found in Section 5.1.2.1 and (to a lesser extent) in Section 5.2.3.2. A. Pluralization The differences in syntactic behavior between common nouns and proper nouns can be accounted for by the fact that proper nouns are supposed to refer “uniquely” within a given context, providing the addressee with sufficient information to identify the intended referent. When the proper noun fails in this respect, as in the examples in (26), pluralization becomes possible. (26) a.

b.

Er zitten drie Barten bij mij in de klas. there sit three Barts with me in the class ‘There are three Barts in my class.’ De twee Duitslanden zijn voorgoed verenigd. the two Germanies are permanently united ‘The two Germanies have been united permanently.’

B. Restrictive modification Whenever a modifier is present, it forces a reading in which there is more than one accessible referent which can be referred to by the same proper noun. This shows that adding modifiers becomes acceptable when unique identification is not possible on the basis of the proper noun alone. This is shown in the examples in (27). (27) a.

b. c.

Wie bedoel je? Kleine Bob of grote Bob? who mean you Little Bob or big Bob ‘Who do you mean? Little Bob or big Bob?’ de Zwitserse Alpen the Swiss Alps Hij komt de woensdag na Pasen. he comes the Wednesday after Easter ‘He’s coming the Wednesday after Easter.’

C. Determiners The examples in (28) contain the proper nouns Jansen and Italië, which normally do not occur with an article, and show that restrictive modification triggers the addition of a determiner: singular proper nouns denoting an animate object co-occur with a non-neuter determiner like the article de in (28a), whereas singular proper nouns denoting a geographical name take a neuter determiner like the article het in (28b). (28) a. b.

De Jansen die ik ken woont in Den Haag. the Jansen that I know lives in Den Haag het Italië uit de middeleeuwen the Italy from the Middle Ages ‘Italy in the Middle Ages’

22 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases When an article is used in combination with proper nouns that themselves already include a definite article, like De Volkskrant in the (a)-examples in (29), the latter is typically left out. This does not hold, however, when the article is an old case form like den in example (29b), which suggests that present-day speakers no longer recognize these elements as articles. (29) a.

Heb jij de (*De) Volkskrant van gisteren gelezen? have you the De Volkskrant of yesterday read ‘Did you read yesterday’s Volkskrant?’ a′. Heb jij vandaag al een (*De) Volkskrant gekocht? have you today already a De Volkskrant bought ‘Did you buy a Volkskrant today?’ b. Het Den Haag uit mijn jeugd was een prachtige stad. the The Hague from my childhood was a wonderful town ‘The The Hague of my childhood was a wonderful town.’

As illustrated in example (27c), the names of the days of the week can also be used in combination with the definite article and an identifying modifier. When we are referring to a particular day close to the moment of speech, the determiner is normally left out, even when the noun is modified. However, when the intended day is more remote, the definite article is normally used. This is shown in (30). (30) a.

b.

c.

Hij is (afgelopen) woensdag hier geweest. he is last Wednesday here been ‘He has been here on Wednesday.’ Hij komt komende woensdag hier. he comes next Wednesday here ‘He will come here next Wednesday.’ Hij komt de (tweede) woensdag voor/na Pasen hier. he comes the second Wednesday before/after Easter here ‘He will come here the (second) Wednesday before/after Easter.’

The indefinite article is also possible, indicating a specific but not further identified, or a nonspecific, Wednesday, as in (31a) and (31b), respectively. (31) a.

b.

Hij is op een woensdag gekomen. he has on a Wednesday come ‘He came on a Wednesday.’ Hij wil op een woensdag komen (maakt niet uit welke). he wants on a Wednesday come matters not prt. which ‘He wants to come on a Wednesday (doesn’t matter which one).’

Proper nouns referring to seasons and names of the months are more restricted with respect to the determiner. The examples in (32) show that the names of the seasons must be preceded by a definite determiner, regardless of whether a restrictive modifier is present or not.

Characterization and classification 23 (32) a.

Zij she b. *Zij she

is in de herfst (van 1963) geboren. is in the autumn of 1963 born is in herfst (van 1963) geboren. is in autumn of 1963 born

The examples in (33), on the other hand, show that the names of the months cannot be preceded by a definite determiner, again regardless of whether a restrictive modifier is present or not. Note that, for one reason or another, it is not possible to modify the names of months by means of a PP like van 1963; either the proper noun is immediately followed by the year or (more formally) by the PP van het jaar 1963. (33) a.

Zij she b. *Zij she

is in januari (1963/*van 1963/van het jaar 1963) geboren. is in January 1963/of 1963/of the year 1963) born is in de januari (1963/van 1963/van het jaar 1963) geboren. is in the January 1963/of 1963/of the year 1963 born

The examples in (34) show that neither the names of seasons nor the names of months can be preceded by an indefinite article, again regardless of whether a restrictive modifier is present or not. (34) a. *Zij she b. *?Zij she

is in een herfst is in the autumn is in een januari is in a January

(tussen 1963 en 1965) between 1963 and 1965 (tussen 1963 en 1965) between 1963 and 1965

geboren. born geboren. born

Finally, proper nouns can co-occur with the demonstrative determiner die in the informal expressions given in example (35), which are used to express surprise, usually combined with a touch of admiration (“who would have thought it!”) or commiseration (“poor fellow/girl”). Note that die is the only form available, even when it precedes a [+NEUTER] noun like the diminutive in (35b); see Section 5.2.3.2.2, sub V, for more discussion. (35) a. b.

Die that Die that

Jan toch! Jan PART Marietje toch! Mariedim PART

1.2.1.2.2. Proper nouns used as common nouns Proper nouns often shift in the direction of a regular common noun. This is a very frequent phenomenon with the names of artists (painter, sculptor, author, designer), in which case the noun can be used to refer to work by the particular artist; this may involve a specific creation of the artist, as in (36a), in which case the noun behaves as a count noun, or to the work of the artist in general, as in (36b), in which case we are dealing with a mass noun. As shown in example (36c), the name of an artistic school can refer to the creations/artistic objects produced by this school; in this case the noun exhibits the behavior of a mass noun.

24 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases (36) a.

b.

c.

Ik heb een Van Gogh/twee van Goghs gezien. I have a Van Gogh/two Van Goghs seen ‘I have seen a Van Gogh/two Van Goghs.’ Hij leest veel Vondel. he reads much Vondel ‘He reads a lot of Vondel.’ Hij heeft heel wat Art Deco in huis. he has quite some Art Deco in house ‘He has quite a lot of Art Deco in his house.’

The names of well-known brands are often used to refer to specific products. The noun phrase een Heineken in example (37), for example, can be used to refer to a glass of beer of that particular brand. Other well-known examples include een Miele (a washing machine), een Batavus (a bicycle), een Renault (a car), and een Kleenex (a paper tissue). (37)

Geeft u mij maar een Heineken. give you me PRT a Heineken ‘Can I have a Heineken?’

In some cases, the use of the brand name becomes more common than the use of the common noun denoting the product. This may result in substituting the brand name for the common noun denoting the product: for example, the brand names Aspirine and Spa are often used to refer to, respectively, pain-killers and mineral water in general, so that the examples in (38) have actually become ambiguous. (38) a.

b.

Mag ik een aspirientje? can I an aspirin ‘Can I have an Aspirine/a painkiller?’ Een Spa, graag! one Spa please ‘One Spa/mineral water, please!’

1.2.1.2.3. Common nouns used as proper nouns The examples in (39) illustrate the use of common nouns as proper nouns, which is restricted to nouns referring to members of the family (vader ‘father’, moeder ‘mother’, oom ‘uncle’, zus ‘sister/sis’) or to uniquely identifiable and well-respected members of the community (dominee ‘vicar’, dokter ‘doctor’, meester ‘teacher’). This use of common nouns tends to be regarded as rather old-fashioned. (39) a.

b.

Heb je het al aan vader gevraagd? have you it already to father asked ‘Have you asked father?’ Dokter heeft gezegd dat ... doctor has said that

Characterization and classification 25 1.2.2. Common nouns This section provides a classification of the common nouns. The basic semantic distinction to be made is that between CONCRETE and ABSTRACT NOUNS (which can also be made in the case of the proper nouns; cf. (21)). Concrete nouns are usually defined as nouns denoting objects that are “tangible” (that one can see or take hold of), whereas abstract nouns denote “non-tangible” entities such as processes, phenomena, emotions, properties, etc. As a result, some classifications include nouns like geur ‘smell’ and geluid ‘sound’ in the set of abstract nouns, but we will not follow this; in the classification presented here, concrete nouns will be defined in terms of physical existence, and therefore include nouns denoting entities that can be heard, tasted or smelled, or, in some cases, only observed indirectly (e.g., microbes, gases, black holes, or force fields). Within the category of concrete nouns, various subcategories can be distinguished, which are discussed in 1.2.2.1. Like concrete nouns, the category of abstract nouns can be shown to consist of a number of subcategories, which are discussed in 1.2.2.2. It is possible for a noun belonging to one subclass to be used as a noun belonging to another subclass; such non-prototypical uses (traditionally referred to as “conversion” between the two subcategories) are dealt with as well. 1.2.2.1. Concrete nouns Concrete nouns are used to denote objects that have physical properties: typically they can be perceived by means of the human senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch), although the observation might also be more indirect. The physical properties of the entities denoted by concrete nouns include color, size, weight, intensity, strength, etc. Obvious examples of concrete nouns are auto ‘car’, tafel ‘table’, gebouw ‘building’, water ‘water’ and hout ‘wood’. (40) a.

b.

c.

De grote, rode auto reed langzaam voorbij. the large red car drove slowly passed ‘The large, red car slowly drove by.’ Jan tilde de zware tafel op. Jan lifted the heavy table prt. ‘Jan lifted the heavy table.’ Het zwarte hout maakte de kamer erg somber. the black wood made the room very gloomy

This section is organized as follows. Section 1.2.2.1.1 will start by distinguishing four types of concrete nouns on the bases of two semantic features ([±SHAPE] and [±SET]). Section 1.2.2.1.2 discusses the semantic and distributional differences between the four types of concrete nouns on their prototypical use, which is followed in Section 1.2.2.1.3 by a discussion of the non-prototypical uses of these subclasses. Section 1.2.2.1.4 concludes with a discussion of a number of special uses of these concrete nouns.

26 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases 1.2.2.1.1. Subclassification The class of concrete nouns can be subdivided on the basis of the features [±SHAPE] and [±SET] in (41); cf. Rijkhoff (2002). (41) a. b. c. d.

• Features of concrete nouns [+SHAPE]: entities denoted are conceptualized as having a definite outline. [-SHAPE]: entities denoted are not conceptualized as having a definite outline. [+SET]: entities denoted are conceived of as a group or a non-singleton set. [-SET]: entities denoted are conceived of as individuals.

The combination of these features results in the four subclasses in Table 5, where the names given in bold are the names that we will use for these noun classes in what follows. Table 5: Four subclasses of concrete nouns [-SHAPE]

[+SHAPE]

[-SET]

[+SET]

substance nouns: hout ‘wood’, water ‘water’, gas ‘gas’, brood ‘bread’ individual nouns: man ‘man’, hond ‘dog’, huis ‘house’, auto ‘car’

mass nouns: vee ‘cattle’, meubilair ‘furniture’, politie ‘police’, gebeente ‘bones’ collective nouns: groep ‘group’, kudde ‘flock’, set ‘set’, horde ‘horde’

The semantic difference between [-SHAPE] and [+SHAPE] nouns corresponds to a number of formal differences with regard to countability and pluralization. The distinction between [+SET] and [-SET], on the other hand, seems purely semantic in nature and does not seem to correspond to any obvious formal difference. I. [-SHAPE]: non-count nouns Substance and mass nouns (i) cannot co-occur with the indefinite article een, but require the use of the zero-article instead, (ii) cannot be pluralized, and (iii) can be modified by [-COUNT] quantifying expressions as veel ‘much’, weinig/een beetje ‘a little’, wat ‘some’, niet genoeg ‘not enough’ and een hoeveelheid ‘an amount’. It is on account of these features that these nouns have traditionally been called mass or non-count nouns. We will use these notions in a slightly different way: the notion of non-count noun will be used to refer to the superset comprising the mass and substance nouns, whereas mass noun will be used for the more restricted concept defined by Table 5. II. [+SHAPE]: count nouns The most conspicuous difference between the [+SHAPE] and [-SHAPE] nouns is that the former can be pluralized whereas the latter cannot. It is on account of this fact that the two sets have traditionally been called count and non-count nouns. Singular [+SHAPE] nouns further differ from the [-SHAPE] nouns in that they can be preceded by the indefinite article but not by quantifying expressions like wat/een beetje ‘a little’. Plural [+SHAPE] nouns further differ from the [-SHAPE] nouns in that they can

Characterization and classification 27 be modified by quantifying expressions like enkele ‘some/a few’ and een aantal ‘a number’. (42) Comparison of [+SHAPE] and [-SHAPE] nouns

PLURALIZATION ARTICLES

QUANTIFIERS

INDIVIDUAL/COLLECTIVE [+SHAPE]

SUBSTANCE/MASS [-SHAPE]

possible definite: de/het indefinite: een *wat/een beetje + Nsg een aantal/enkele + Npl

not possible definite: de/het indefinite: ∅ wat/een beetje + Nsg *een aantal/enkele + Nsg

Note in this connection that Dutch differs from English in that it does not distinguish between [-COUNT] quantifiers like little/much and [+COUNT] quantifiers like few/many; Dutch uses weinig ‘little/few’ and veel ‘much/many’ both for noncount nouns and for plural count nouns. Nevertheless, the quantifier een beetje (but not wat) can be considered a [-COUNT] quantifier given that it cannot be used on the intended quantificational meaning with (singular or plural) count nouns: *een beetje boek(en) ‘a little books’. Similarly, quantifiers like een aantal/enkele can be considered [+COUNT] quantifiers given that they can only co-occur with plural count nouns. For a detailed discussion of the distribution and function of the various determiners and quantifiers, see Chapter 5 and Chapter 6. III. [+SET] and [-SET] Mass and collective nouns are [+SET] nouns and denote entities that themselves consist of two or more members. Substance and individual nouns are [-SET] nouns and denote unitary entities that do not consist of more members. It must be noted, however, that plural individual noun phrases like (de) mannen ‘(the) men’ also refer to a set; the feature [±SET] must therefore be considered a feature of the bare noun, which can be overridden by the feature of the plural morpheme. 1.2.2.1.2. Differences between the subclasses The following subsections will discuss in more detail some differences between the four subclasses of concrete nouns on their prototypical uses; the non-prototypical uses of these subclasses will be discussed in 1.2.2.1.3. I. Substance nouns [-SHAPE] [-SET] Substance nouns like water ‘water’ or hout ‘wood’ have the feature [-SHAPE]: the entities described by such nouns have measure (weight, volume) but no outline, and for this reason they can be included in the supercategory of non-count nouns. The entities denoted by the substance nouns do not qualify as sets either, given that the entities denoted by substances do not consist of individual members. Since substance nouns lack a definite outline, they cannot co-occur with the indefinite article, but require the use of the zero-article instead, as is shown by example (43a). Example (43b) shows that substance nouns cannot be pluralized either; consequently, when noun phrases headed by these nouns function as subjects, there is always singular agreement on the verb.

28 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases In het glas zat ∅/*een water. in the glass satsg ∅/a water ‘There was water in the glass.’ b. *In het glas zaten drie waters. in the glass satpl three waters

(43) a.

Substance nouns can be modified by a [-COUNT] quantifying expression like een beetje ‘a little’ in example (44a), but not by [+COUNT] quantifying expressions like enkele ‘some/a few’ in example (44b). (44) a.

In het glas zat wat/een beetje water. water in the glass satsg a little ‘There was a little water in the glass.’ b. *In het glas zat enkele/een aantal water. in the glass satsg some/a number water

II. Individual nouns [+SHAPE] [-SET] Individual nouns have the feature [+SHAPE]: they denote entities with a definite outline, such as auto ‘car’ or tafel ‘table’, and for this reason they can be included in the supercategory of count nouns. They can be used to refer to persons, animals and things (e.g., man ‘man’, hond ‘dog’, auto ‘car’). Since the entities denoted by individual nouns are conceived of as individuals, they also have the feature [-SET]. Example (45a) shows that, in singular indefinite noun phrases, individual nouns cannot be preceded by the indefinite zero-article ∅, but must be preceded by the indefinite article een ‘a’. If more than one entity is referred to, the plural form of the noun is preceded by the zero-article, as in (45b). When they function as subjects, noun phrases headed by individual nouns trigger number agreement on the verb: the verb is singular in (45a) and plural in (45b). (45) a.

b.

Op de tafel lag een/*∅ boek. on the table laysg a/∅ book ‘There was a book on the table.’ Op de tafel lagen ∅ boeken. on the table laypl ∅ books ‘There were books on the table.’

Note in passing that Section 8.2.2 will show that there is an exception to the general rule that singular individual nouns must be preceded by the indefinite article een ‘a’: predicatively used individual nouns denoting a profession, function or position can be used without the indefinite article: Jan is leraar ‘Jan is a teacher’. Plural individual nouns refer to non-singleton sets and can therefore be modified by [+COUNT] quantifying expressions like enkele ‘some/a few’. Singular individual nouns, however, cannot co-occur with [-COUNT] quantifiers like een beetje ‘a bit’. This is illustrated by (46a) and (46b), respectively. (46) a.

Op de tafel lagen enkele/een aantal boeken. on the table laypl some/a number [of] books ‘There were some/a number of books on the table.’

Characterization and classification 29 b. *Op de tafel lag/lagen wat/een beetje boek. a bit book on the table laysg/pl

III. Mass nouns [-SHAPE] [+SET] Mass nouns have the features [+SET] and [-SHAPE]: they denote entities that are conceived of as a non-singleton set, but the set as a whole lacks a definite outline. Examples of these nouns are vee ‘cattle’, politie ‘police’, geboomte ‘trees’ and meubilair ‘furniture’. Example (47a) shows that, like substance nouns, mass nouns cannot co-occur with the indefinite article, but use the zero-article instead, and (47b) shows that they cannot be pluralized. Accordingly, they only combine with singular verb forms when heading a subject noun phrase. (47) a.

In de kamer in the room b. *In de kamer in the room

stond ∅/*een meubilair. stoodsg ∅/a furniture stonden drie meubilairs. stoodpl three furnitures

Being non-count nouns, mass nouns can be modified by [-COUNT] quantifying expressions like een beetje ‘a little’, but not by [+COUNT] quantifiers like enkele ‘some/a few’. This is shown by (48a) and (48b), respectively. (48) a.

In de kamer stond wat/een beetje meubilair. furniture in the room stoodsg a little ‘There was a bit of furniture in the room.’ b. *In de kamer stond/stonden enkele/een aantal meubilair. in the room stoodsg/stoodpl some/a.number.of furniture

A further distinction can be made according to whether the set denoted by the mass nouns is homogeneous (consisting of identical or similar members) or heterogeneous (consisting of members differing in shape, color, function etc.). Nouns belonging to the former category, such as politie ‘police’, do not allow modification by means of allerlei ‘all sorts of’ or velerlei ‘many sorts of’, whereas nouns belonging to the latter class, like vee or meubilair, speelgoed ‘toys’, snoepgoed ‘sweets’ do (Vossen 1995). (49) a.

b.

??

Er was allerlei politie op straat. there was all sorts of police in the.street ‘There were all sorts of police in the street.’ De kinderen kregen allerlei speelgoed/snoepgoed. the children got all sorts of toys/sweets ‘The children were given all sorts of toys/sweets.’

IV. Collective nouns [+SHAPE] [+SET] Collective nouns differ from mass nouns in that they have the feature [+SHAPE]: they denote entities that are conceived of as a non-singleton set that has a definite outline in the sense that it consists of a restricted (though possibly unknown) number of members and is, as such, bounded. Examples of collective nouns are groep ‘group’, kudde ‘flock’, verzameling ‘set’, club ‘club’, vereniging ‘club/society’, regering ‘government’ and collectie ‘collection’. Collective nouns

30 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases behave largely like individual nouns; example (50a) shows that they can be preceded by the indefinite article een, but not by the zero-article, and (50b) shows that the plural is used when more than one set is referred to. Consequently, when noun phrases headed by these nouns function as subjects, they will trigger number agreement on the verb. (50) a.

b.

Op de foto stond een/*∅ regering afgebeeld. on the photo stoodsg a/∅ government depicted ‘The photo showed a government.’ Op de foto stonden twee regeringen afgebeeld. on the photo stoodpl two governments depicted ‘The photo showed two governments.’

Plural collective nouns can be modified by [+COUNT] quantifying expressions like enkele ‘some/a few’; singular collective nouns, however, cannot be preceded by [-COUNT] quantifiers like een beetje ‘a little’. This is shown by (51a) and (51b), respectively. (51) a.

Op de foto stonden enkele/een aantal regeringen. on the photo stood some/a number governments ‘The photo showed some/a number of governments.’ b. *Op de foto stond wat/een beetje regering. on the photo stood a little government

A substantial subclass of collective nouns exhibit special behavior in the sense that they cannot readily occur on their own, but are preferably followed by a plural individual noun, specifying their members. Collective nouns like kudde therefore normally occur as the first noun in a binominal noun phrase. An example involving the collective noun kudde ‘flock’ is given in (52). (52) a.

b.

In de wei stond een kudde ?(schapen). in the meadow stood a flock [of] sheep ‘There was a flock of sheep in the meadow.’ In de wei stonden twee/enkele/een aantal kuddes ?(schapen). in the meadow stood two/some/a.number.of flocks [of] sheep ‘There were two/some/a few/a number of flocks of sheep in the meadow.’

Although binominal noun phrases often contain collective nouns (because these denote a designated number of members), it is not a prerequisite that the first noun be a collective noun; Chapter 4 will show that the collective nouns form only one subtype of a wider range of nouns that can be used in binominal noun phrases. 1.2.2.1.3. Non-prototypical uses This section will show that the classification presented in the preceding sections is characterized by a certain degree of flexibility in the sense that it is sometimes possible to use nouns belonging to one category in a way that is more appropriate for another category. In the following three subsections we discuss three cases of such non-prototypical uses, which all involve a shift in the value of the feature [±SHAPE]. The most common shift from the feature [-SHAPE] to [+SHAPE] involves

Characterization and classification 31 the use of a substance noun as an individual noun, but there are also some more marked cases in which a substance noun is used as an individual noun. There is just a single case that involves a shift from the feature [+SHAPE] to [-SHAPE], namely, the use of an individual noun as a substance noun. I. Substance nouns used as individual nouns ([-SHAPE] → [+SHAPE]) Substance nouns can occasionally be used as individual nouns. This may take place through conversion (∅-derivation), by adding the diminutive suffix -je or one of its allomorphs, or by combining the noun with the indefinite article een ‘a’. We will discuss the three cases in the order indicated. A. Conversion Individualization through conversion may result in a noun denoting objects made of the substance in question. Example (53) shows that the converted noun can be combined with either an indefinite or a definite article and be pluralized. Note that in these cases both uses are common, with the result that it is difficult to establish whether one use is dominant over the other or in what direction the conversion goes. (53) Conversion to count noun SUBSTANCE NOUN

INDIVIDUAL NOUN SINGULAR

glas ‘glass’ steen ‘stone’ brood ‘bread’

PLURAL

een/het glas ‘a/the glass’ een/de steen ‘a/the stone’ een/het brood ‘a/the loaf of bread’

glazen ‘glasses’ stenen ‘stones’ broden ‘loaves of bread’

Conversion can also result in a noun denoting a specific type of the substance denoted by the substance noun; the individual noun gas in (54) denotes a particular gas, and the individual nouns bier and wijn denote certain kinds or brands of beer and wine. In both cases, the converted noun can be combined with an indefinite article and be pluralized. Not that, when we want to maintain that we are dealing with a shift in the feature [±SHAPE], we again have to give the feature [+SHAPE] a wide interpretation by assuming that, cognitively speaking, types of gases and liquids do have a certain definite outline in the sense that, e.g., different types of gases do, chemically speaking, have different, characteristic structures. (54) Conversion to count nouns denoting a specific type of substance SUBSTANCE NOUN

INDIVIDUAL NOUN SINGULAR

gas ‘gas’ wijn ‘wine’ bier ‘beer’

#

een/ het gas ‘a/the gas’ een/#de wijn ‘a/the wine’ een/#het bier ‘a/the beer’

PLURAL

gassen ‘gases’ wijnen ‘wines’ bieren ‘beers’

Example (54) also shows that definite determiners are not possible under the intended reading; a definite noun phrases like het gas ‘the gas’ instead seems to refer to a contextually determined quantity of gas. Still, definite determiners are

32 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases possible on the type reading in examples like (55), where the restrictive modifiers create a contrastive context. (55) a.

b.

De witte wijn is erg goed (maar de rode niet). the white wine is very good but the red not ‘The white wine is very good (but the red wine is not).’ De Franse wijn was erg duur (maar de Italiaanse niet). the French wine was very expensive but the Italian not ‘The French wine was very expensive (but not the Italian wine).’

It is not only in cases like (55) that restrictive modifiers facilitate the type reading. Conversion often leads to very marked results: using an example like een melk to refer to a particular type of that substance is only possible in very specific contexts, but the addition of a restrictive modifier often makes such indefinite noun phrases fully acceptable. (56) a. b.

c.

een melk ??(met extra veel calcium) a milk with extra much calcium een zand ??(dat zeer geschikt is voor het bouwen van zandkastelen) a sand that very suitable is for the building of sand castles ‘a kind of sand that is very suitable for building sand-castles’ een ??(voor quiches en soepen erg geschikte) spinazie a for pies and soups very suitable spinach ‘a type of spinach that is very suitable for pies and soups’

B. Diminutive The diminutive form of substance nouns denotes a small object made (up) of the substance in question, usually of a very specific type or character. For example, while krijt denotes chalk in general, krijtje denotes a piece of chalk used for writing on a blackboard. The derived nouns in (57) can be combined with either an indefinite or definite article and can be pluralized. (57) Derivation of count nouns by means of the diminutive suffix SUBSTANCE

INDIVIDUAL NOUN

NOUN

SINGULAR

PLURAL

krijt ‘chalk’ stof ‘dust’ ijs ‘ice-cream’

een/het krijtje ‘a/the piece of chalk’ een/het stofje ‘a/the particle of dust’ een/het ijsje ‘an/the ice-cream’

krijtjes ‘pieces of chalk’ stofjes ‘particles of dust’ ijsjes ‘ice-creams’

Derivation by means of the diminutive suffix is restricted in its application. The diminutive forms in (57), for example, are so commonly used that they may be said to have gained full lexical status, each having a specific meaning transcending the sum of head noun and diminutive suffix. Other combinations of substance noun and diminutive suffix, however, lead to varying degrees of markedness, as can be seen in (58). (58) a.

??

een melkje a milkdim

b. ?een theetje a teadim

c. *?een zilvertje a silverdim

Characterization and classification 33 Judgments on the acceptability of the diminutive forms in the examples in (58) will doubtlessly vary from speaker to speaker, and they largely depend on socio-cultural phenomena. For example, a diminutive form like melkje ‘little milk’ will definitely be marked (although acceptable in baby-talk), whereas a form like yoghurtje ‘little yogurt’ is acceptable, due to the fact that yogurt is often sold in small cups. Similarly, the diminutive form often refers to drinks served in certain quantities without explicit mention of that quantity. (59) a.

een cognacje a cognacdim ‘a glass of cognac’

b. een biertje a beerdim ‘a glass of beer’

C. Combining the indefinite article een and a substance noun The combination of indefinite article and substance noun can also be used to refer to (culturally defined) fixed quantities or individual entities in constructions such as those given in (60). This particular use is more or less restricted to situations in which listed or displayed items (especially food) are ordered. In these and some of the earlier cases, there is reason to assume that we are dealing with ellipsis. Thus, the phrase een koffie ‘a coffee’ in (60a) might be taken as the elliptical form of the binominal noun phrase een kop(je) koffie ‘a cup of coffee’. Similarly, the noun phrase een melk ‘a milk’ in example (56a) above may be taken as the simplified form of the noun phrase een soort melk ‘a kind of milk’. Evidence in favor of such an analysis can be found in the fact, illustrated in example (60b), that it is possible to use a cardinal numeral to indicate that we are referring to a non-singleton set in combination with a singular substance noun. This can be accounted for by assuming that agreement holds between the numeral and the empty or elided noun; cf. the primed examples. (60) a. b. c.

Een koffie, alstublieft. a coffee please Mag ik twee bier van u? may I two beer from you Een spaghetti, graag. a spaghetti please

a′. een (kop) koffie a cup of coffee b′. twee (glazen) bier two glasses of beer c′. een (bord) spaghetti a plate of spaghetti

Note that the northern variety of Dutch may differ in this respect from other varieties of Dutch; in Flemish Dutch, for example, twee koffie/bier is not acceptable. Instead a plural (diminutive) form is used: Twee koffies/biertjes ‘two coffees/beers’. Not all of the non-prototypical uses of substance nouns discussed earlier can be analyzed as involving ellipsis. For example, the fully lexicalized nouns in examples (53) and (54) do not seem to have an appropriate semantic correlate that can be taken as its basic form. This will be clear from the examples in (61), which show that when the noun bier refers to a certain kind of beer, it must be pluralized when preceded by a cardinal numeral, whereas this is not possible in the corresponding binominal construction; an ellipsis account is therefore not plausible.

34 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases (61) a.

b.

Ze hebben hier honderden bieren/*bier. they have here hundreds beers/beer ‘They have hundreds of kinds of beer over here.’ Ze hebben hier honderden soorten bier/*bieren. they have here hundreds kinds [of] beer/beers ‘They have hundreds of kinds of beer over here.’

Something similar holds for the noun phrase een biertje in (59b). The fact that the diminutive ending attaches to the substance noun bier suggests that this noun must be the underlying head and that there is no reason to assume the presence of another (empty or elided) noun: see the contrast in (62), which shows that in the binominal construction the diminutive suffix cannot be attached to the substance noun. (62) a. b.

Ze she Ze she

vroeg asked.for vroeg asked.for

een glas bier/*biertje. a glass [of] beer/beerdim. een glaasje bier. a glassdim. [of] beer

II. Mass nouns used as individual nouns ([-SHAPE] → [+SHAPE]) Instances where mass nouns are used as individual nouns are rare and idiosyncratic, which might be expected given that they involve an additional shift in the feature [±SET], but not impossible. Such instances always involve the use of a pluralized mass noun referring to different kinds of the entity denoted, rather than to the mass itself. Thus example (63a), although definitely marked, is acceptable in an informal context, where different kinds of police (e.g., state police, county police, municipal police) are being distinguished. Clearly, cases like these cannot be regarded as involving ellipsis given that the corresponding binominal construction requires the noun to be singular: drie (soorten) politie ‘three kinds of police’. (63) a.

b.

??

Al heb je drie polities, dan ben je nog niet veilig. even have you three police then are you still not safe ‘Even if you have three police forces, you still won’t be safe.’ Al heb je drie soorten politie, dan ben je nog niet veilig. even have you three kinds of polices then are you still not safe ‘Even if you have three kinds of police forces, you still won’t be safe.’

Still, it must be noted that the conversion in (63a) is quite rare: the examples in (64) show that it is impossible with most mass nouns and that a binominal construction or compound noun must be used in order to convey the intended message. (64) a. *Je one b. Je one

vindt finds vindt finds

verscheidene several verscheidene several

veeën in dit gebied. cattles in this area soorten vee/veesoorten in dit gebied. sorts of cattle/cattle.kinds in this area

III. Individual nouns used as substance nouns ([+SHAPE] → [-SHAPE]) The use of [+SHAPE] as [-SHAPE] nouns only involves the use of individual nouns as substance nouns. In all cases we are dealing with conversion. Contexts in which

Characterization and classification 35 reference is made to food are typical for this kind of use: the nouns kip/appel ‘chicken/apple’, which normally refer to entities, are used in (65a&b) to refer to an unbounded quantity of edible parts of these entities. (65) a.

b.

We aten gisteravond kip. we ate yesterday.evening chicken ‘We had chicken last night.’ Mijn neefje is dol op meloen. my little cousin is fond of melon ‘My little cousin is fond of melon.’

Not all individual nouns referring to edible entities accept this kind of conversion quite so readily. In particular, nouns denoting small objects like bes ‘berry’ or rozijn ‘raisin’ in (66a) defy a substance interpretation. This, however, seems to hold only for objects that are normally conceptualized as separate objects, possibly because they are consumed that way. This would account for the fact that the examples in (66b), which also involve small objects with a definite shape, are acceptable. (66) a.

b.

??

Mijn neefje is dol op bes/rozijn. my little cousin is fond of berry/raisin ‘My little cousin is fond of berries/raisins.’ Zij houdt niet van groene peper/kruidnagel. she likes not of green pepper/clove ‘She doesn’t like green pepper/cloves.’

However, it must be noted that nouns like bes ‘berry’ or aardbei ‘strawberry’ also resist conversion in examples like (67), which intend to refer to substances which are flavored by means of, e.g., an extract of berries/strawberries, whereas this is readily possible with nouns like meloen ‘melon’. It seems, therefore, that it is the prototypical and not the actual use of the noun that counts. (67) a. *Er there b. ??Er there c. Er there

zit bes/rozijn in de thee. is berry/raisin in the tea zit aardbei in dit ijs. is strawberry in this ice cream zit meloen in dit drankje. is melon in this drink

Conversion is also less common in non-culinary contexts and often yields less acceptable results. Nevertheless examples like (68) are conceivable, especially on a generic reading. Ik houd erg van %(de) zee. I like very.much of the sea ‘I like (the) sea very much.’ b. ?Veel bos is goed voor het milieu. much forest is good for the environment ‘A lot of forest is good for the environment.’

(68) a.

36 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases Another case that may involve the use of [+SHAPE] nouns as [-SHAPE] nouns is discussed in Section 1.2.2.1.4, sub II. 1.2.2.1.4. Special uses: exclamative and evaluative constructions In (42), we have seen that the feature [±SHAPE] has an effect on the determiners the nouns may co-occur with: count nouns take the indefinite article een, whereas the non-count nouns take the zero-article. In some constructions, however, these cooccurrence restrictions do not seem to apply. We will discuss two of these cases. I. Exclamative use of [-SHAPE] nouns Combinations of an indefinite article and a non-count noun are normally not acceptable, and the same thing holds for plural individual nouns. This is illustrated here again in the primeless examples in (69). These combinations become fully acceptable when preceded by the exclamative element wat, as in the primed examples. In these cases, the noun phrases form an exclamation, conveying the idea of an unexpectedly large quantity, or an unexpected quality; the water may be very dirty, the furniture extremely beautiful, and the books of extraordinary quality. (69) a. *een a b. *een a c. *een a

water water meubilair furniture boeken books

a′. Wat what b′. Wat what c′. Wat what

een water! a water een meubilair! a furniture een boeken! a books

The use of the indefinite article also become possible in other exclamative surroundings, as shown by (70); the exclamative use is triggered by the use of the ethical dative me and/or the empathic particle toch, and the use of the noun phrases in the primeless examples in (69) is licensed. (70) a.

b.

c.

Na die stortbui lag me er een water op de weg! after that downpour lay me there a water on the road ‘After that downpour, the quantity of water on the road was incredible.’ In die kamer stond me toch een meubilair! in that room stood me PRT a furniture ‘That room was absolutely packed with furniture.’ Er lagen me toch een boeken over de grond verspreid! on the ground scattered there lay me PRT a books ‘An incredible quantity of book was scattered over the floor!’

II. Evaluative use of [+SHAPE] nouns A quantifier like een beetje ‘a little bit’ normally only occurs with non-count nouns like the substance noun water ‘water’ in (71a) and the mass noun meubilair ‘furniture’ in (71b). With individual nouns like boek ‘book’ in (71c), the modifier een beetje is normally not possible.

Characterization and classification 37 (71) a. b.

een a een a

beetje bit [of] beetje bit [of]

water water meubilair furniture

c. #een beetje boek a bit [of] book

Nevertheless, example (71c) is marked with “#”, since it may be acceptable on a very specific reading, and in a context characterized by a high degree of informality. Illustrations are given in (72). These examples express a (positive or negative) evaluation on the part of the speaker: the speaker is talking about books/men with certain characteristics that make them worthy of that name, that is, the speaker is talking about qualities, not entities, and in this sense it can be said that the individual nouns boek and man are used as substance nouns. (72) a.

b.

Een beetje boek kost al gauw € 25. a bit [of] book costs already soon € 25 ‘A book that is worthy of the name costs at least € 25.’ Een beetje man pikt zoiets niet. a bit [of] man takes something like that not ‘A real man wouldn’t stand for that.’

Given the right context, every individual noun can be converted into a substance noun in this way, although the result is always at least stylistically marked. The examples in (73) show that quantifying expressions like te veel ‘too much’, niet genoeg ‘not enough’ and een hoeveelheid ‘a quantity’, which are normally restricted to substance nouns or plural count nouns, may trigger a similar interpretative effect as een beetje, when they are used in combination with singular individual nouns. (73) a.

b.

Hij is mij teveel manager/niet genoeg manager. he is me too.much manager/not enough manager ‘He is too much of a manager/not enough manager to my taste.’ Dat is een flinke hoeveelheid boek die je daar mee zeult! that is a fair quantity book that you there prt. tote ‘That’s quite a number of books you’re toting around!’

In a similar way, collective nouns can be used as mass nouns. Use and effect are comparable to conversion from individual to substance noun. Here, too, conversion is more likely to be acceptable in contexts involving an evaluation on the part of the speaker. In (74a), for instance, the impression given is that of a sports club with a fair number of members and a certain status, while in (74b), the stamp collection in question must be considerable in size. (74) a.

b.

Een beetje sportclub heeft tegenwoordig een sponsor. a little bit [of] sports club has nowadays a sponsor ‘Any self-respecting sports club has a sponsor nowadays.’ Een beetje postzegelverzameling kost al gauw duizenden euro’s. a bit [of] stamp collection costs already soon thousands euros ‘Any reasonably-sized stamp collection costs easily thousands of euros.’

38 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases 1.2.2.2. Abstract nouns Abstract nouns denote entities that have a mental existence only, and therefore do not have any physical properties. Obvious examples are nouns like betekenis ‘meaning’, liefde ‘love’ and geloof ‘belief’. The set of abstract nouns also include nouns like verwoesting ‘destruction’; these nouns denote events, which are not directly perceivable and have no objective existence in the physical world, but are rather mental constructs built on the basis of observations relating to the participants and the results of the events in question. Nouns like aanname ‘assumption’ or verzoek ‘request’ are also taken to be abstract nouns; they denote mental constructs that are used to refer to propositional contents. The same thing holds for nouns like grootte ‘size’ or schoonheid ‘beauty’ that, instead of denoting concrete objects, denote properties of these objects. 1.2.2.2.1. Subclassification Most traditional (and also many theory-specific) discussions of abstract nouns treat these nouns as belonging to one heterogeneous group, their common feature being that they are not concrete. This is hardly surprising, since the category seems to defy systematic classification in terms of clear-cut features comparable to [±SHAPE] and [±SET], which were used in 1.2.2.1 for the classification of the concrete nouns. Nevertheless, attempts have been made to come to a subclassification depending on the type of abstract entity denoted. Table 6 gives an overview of the types of abstract nouns that will be distinguished here together with a number of examples. Table 6: Five subclasses of abstract nouns TYPE OF NOUN

DENOTATION

EXAMPLES

State-of-affairs nouns

action [+CONTR][+DYN] process [-CONTR][+DYN] position [+CONTR][-DYN] state [-CONTR][-DYN] Propositional content statement question order Physical property Mental property Emotion

verwoesting ‘destruction’ behandeling ‘treatment’ val ‘fall’ vooruitgang ‘progress’ verblijf ‘stay’ volharding ‘perseverance’ bewusteloosheid ‘unconsciousness’ ligging ‘position’ feit ‘fact’ aanname ‘assumption’ verklaring ‘statement’, belofte ‘promise’ vraag ‘question’, verzoek ‘request’ bevel ‘order’, opdracht ‘order’ lengte ‘length’, schoonheid ‘beauty’ geduld ‘patience’, verlegenheid ‘shyness’ liefde ‘love’, angst ‘fear’

Proposition nouns Speech-act nouns Property nouns Emotion nouns

In what follows, these types will be described in some detail. A brief discussion of differences in syntactic and morphological behavior between these subcategories will also be included.

Characterization and classification 39 I. State-of-affairs nouns State-of-affairs nouns, which are sometimes also referred to as event or process nouns, can be used to refer to states of affairs, that is, to actions (like verwoesting ‘destruction’), processes (like val ‘fall’), positions (like verblijf ‘stay’), states (like bewusteloosheid ‘unconsciousness’), and the like. As these states of affairs take place or obtain at a particular time and place, state-of-affairs nouns can be modified by time or place adverbials. Similarly, as states of affairs have participants, these nouns have arguments like agents, themes and recipients, even if these arguments are often not overtly present. Let us consider some examples. The head noun verwoesting ‘destruction’ in (75a) is used to denote an action, the noun val ‘fall’ in (75b) denotes a process, the noun wonen ‘living’ in (75c) denotes a position and the noun hebben ‘having’ in (75d) denotes a state. In all these examples, the head noun is complemented by one or more noun phrases referring to the participant(s) in the state of affairs referred to by the noun phrase as a whole; see Section 2.2.3 for a more detailed discussion of these complements. Note that in all these examples the state-of-affairs nouns are typically derived from verbs; in view of their meaning, this will not come as a surprise. (75) a. b. c.

d.

de verwoesting van de stad the destruction of the city de val van de regering the fall of the government het wonen in een stad the living in a city ‘living in a city’ het hebben van blauwe ogen the having of blue eyes ‘having blue eyes’

[action: [+dynamic][+controlled]] [process: [+dynamic][-controlled]] [position: [-dynamic][+controlled]]

[state: [-dynamic][-controlled]]

II. Proposition nouns Proposition nouns are sometimes also referred to as content nouns; they denote entities that are assumed to have contents, such as facts, ideas, assumptions, beliefs etc. These entities function as propositions in the sense that they can be given a truth-value: they can be said to be true or untrue, they can be believed or denied, agreed with or rejected etc. The nouns in question have a complement, which typically takes the form of a clause or a PP: in (76a-c) the noun is complemented by a dat-clause denoting the content of the proposition and in (76d) a prepositional van-phrase is used. (76) a.

b.

het feit dat de aarde rond is the fact that the earth round is ‘the fact that the earth is round’ het idee dat schapen gekloond kunnen worden the idea that sheep cloned can be ‘the idea that sheep can be cloned’

40 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases c.

d.

de aanname dat er leven op de maan is the assumption that there life on the moon is ‘the assumption that there is life on the moon’ het nieuws van het aanstaande huwelijk van de kroonprins the news of the forthcoming marriage of the crown.prince ‘the news of the crown prince’s forthcoming marriage’

Like state-of-affairs nouns, proposition nouns are typically, though not necessarily, deverbal; cf. the use of the simple nouns feit ‘fact’ and idee ‘idea’ in (76a&b). With the deverbal cases, the input verb belongs to the class of so-called verbs of thinking (such as geloven ‘to believe’, aannemen ‘to assume’, veronderstellen ‘to suppose’, denken ‘to think’, menen ‘to think/believe’, argumenteren ‘to argue/reason’, redeneren ‘to reason’, etc.) or verbs denoting actions requiring some mental activity on the part of the speaker or hearer (like impliceren ‘to imply’, bewijzen ‘to prove’). The primed examples in (77) show that deverbal proposition nouns all seem to have infinitival counterparts that are clearly related in meaning. (77) a. b. c.

de aanname ‘the assumption’ de argumentatie ‘the argumentation’ de redenering ‘the reasoning/argumentation’

a′. het aannemen ‘the assuming’ b′. het argumenteren ‘the arguing’ c′. het redeneren ‘the reasoning’

Nevertheless, there are important semantic and syntactic differences between the two forms. As far as the semantics is concerned, deverbal proposition nouns like aanname, argumentatie, and redenering denote the content of the argumentation or (line of) reasoning, whereas the infinitival nouns function as state-of-affairs nouns, denoting the action of arguing or reasoning. In other words, while the former are preferred in contexts like (78a) where it is the content that is referred to, the latter are more acceptable in contexts like (78b) where some action is referred to. (78) a.

Zijn redenering was niet bepaald logisch. his reasoning was not exactly logical a′. ??Zijn redeneren was niet bepaald logisch. his to.reason was not exactly logical b. Logisch redeneren is niet zijn sterkste punt. logically to.reason is not his strongest point ‘Reasoning logically is not his strongest point.’ b′. ??Logische redenering is niet zijn sterkste punt. logical reasoning is not his strongest point

Section 2.2.3.2 includes a more detailed discussion of these forms and the syntactic differences between them (like the optional/obligatory realization of the complement). III. Speech-act nouns Speech-act nouns denote a type of abstract entity that can be described as a speech act. Nouns of this type, such as vraag ‘question’, bevel ‘order’, belofte ‘promise’, verzoek ‘request’, mededeling ‘announcement’ denote some form of verbal

Characterization and classification 41 interaction, and are typically derived from verbs denoting such activities, that is, the input verb is a verb of saying like vragen ‘to ask’, bevelen ‘to order’, beloven ‘to promise’, verzoeken ‘to request’, etc. Like proposition nouns, speech-act nouns can take a clausal complement introduced by a complementizer denoting the contents of the speech act. This is illustrated in example (79) for the speech-act nouns mededeling ‘announcement’ and verzekering ‘assurance’, which take a clausal complement introduced by the complementizer dat ‘that’. (79) a.

b.

De mededeling dat de trein vertraagd was, was niet te verstaan. the announcement that the train delayed was was not to hear ‘The announcement that the train was delayed couldn’t be heard.’ De verzekering dat het probleem niet ernstig was, stelde ons gerust. the assurance that the problem not serious was put us at.ease ‘The assurance that the problem wasn’t serious put our minds at ease.’

Speech-act nouns can also take an infinitival complement introduced by the complementizer om, provided the input verb is able to do so, too. The implied subject °PRO of the infinitival complement clause is interpreted as being coreferential with an argument of the speech-act noun. Which argument functions as antecedent depends on the context. The examples in (80) serve to illustrate this: in (80a), it is the genitive noun phrase Jans, referring to the person making the request, that will be interpreted as coreferential with PRO, and in (80b), it is the noun phrase Peter, the recipient of the request, that is interpreted as the PRO subject of the interpretation. (80) a.

b.

Jans verzoek aan Peter [om PRO te mogen blijven] werd genegeerd. to be.allowed stay was ignored Jan’s request to Peter COMP ‘Jan’s request to Peter for permission to stay was ignored.’ Jans verzoek aan Peter [om PRO te blijven] werd genegeerd. to stay was ignored Jan’s request to Peter COMP ‘Jan’s request to Peter to stay was ignored.’

The clausal complement of the speech-act noun vraag ‘question’ is interrogative. As with the verb vragen ‘to ask’, the interrogative complement can be a yes/no-question, introduced by the complementizer of, or a wh-question, introduced by a wh-phrase. (81) a.

b.

de vraag [of we moesten komen] come the question COMP we must ‘the question whether we had to come’ de vraag [hoe we nu moesten handelen] the question how we now must act ‘the question how we should act in such cases’

[yes/no-question]

[wh-question]

Speech-act nouns can also take PP-complements. These complements can denote the contents of the speech act, in which case the choice of preposition often depends on the speech-act noun.

42 Syntax of Dutch: nouns and noun phrases (82) a. b. c. d.

zijn verzoek om salarisverhoging his request for pay rise zijn mededeling over het volgende uitje his announcement about the next excursion het verbod op roken in dit gebouw the ban on smoking in this building de vraag naar olie the request for oil

A postnominal PP can, of course, also refer to the participants of the speech act, in which case the prepositions van ‘of’ and aan ‘to’ are used, followed by a noun phrase referring to the speaker and the addressee, respectively, as in (83). Note that both the van-PP and the aan-PP precede the om-complement in (83), regardless of whether the latter is a PP or a clause. (83) a. b.

het verzoek the request het verzoek the request

van Marie of Marie van Marie of Marie

aan de commissie om extra hulp to the committee for extra help aan de commissie [om PRO te worden toegelaten] to be admitted to the committee COMP

The examples in (84) show that a postnominal PP can also have the function of an adverbial adjunct. These examples also show that a PP-complement must precede the PP-adjunct, whereas a complement clause follows it instead. For more details on the complementation of speech-act nouns, see Section 2.3. (84) a. b.

het verbod in de Bijbel